


Come Down to Me

by orangeiguanas4



Category: Glee
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Romance, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-20 11:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1508483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeiguanas4/pseuds/orangeiguanas4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's no reason for Santana to be on a stage singing "Don't Rain On My Parade", except that she's determined to ruin every single thing in Rachel's life. That's exactly what she's doing. And Rachel knows in that moment that the one girl that she trusted is now her biggest enemy. Starts with 5x09 and veers off from canon beyond 5x10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rachel has always known that she was born to be on the stage. Part of her knows it was a fluke that she landed Funny Girl in the first place, considering her lack of experience beyond community theater performance. Despite all of her auditions for Off-Broadway productions in New York since she moved here, the only role she had landed involved a nude scene in a student film. Rachel knows she was born to play Fanny on a Broadway stage, but that doesn’t ease any of her anxiety over auditions for her understudy.

The first few girls help soothe her insecurities-they’re good actresses, but their vocal ranges are nowhere near the level they need to be to fill her shoes on any given night. She tries, again, to convince her director that she really doesn’t need an understudy in the first place. And again, he refuses and reminds her about the business end of a production of this level-she may be the star, but she’s rendered powerless next to the people putting money into bringing Funny Girl back to a prominent stage.

He reads the next name on the list and she’s convinced that her heart actually stops beating. There’s no way that Santana, her best friend AND roommate, would be auditioning to be her understudy. But then a voice rings out, loud and clear from the back of the theater and there’s no mistaking it. Santana Lopez knows how to make an entrance.

It’s nothing like the original, yet Santana completely owns it from the first note. Simply speaking, it’s right up Santana’s alley with its showy runs and faster tempo. As usual, Santana flirts with a simple glance towards Rupert, and he’s practically salivating at how short Santana’s dress is, and how it presses tightly against her thighs. Before Santana even hits the last note, Rachel knows, judging by the lead weight settling in her stomach, that Santana is going to be her understudy, even if she is completely wrong for the part.

After her director dismisses her for the day - they don’t have rehearsals since they’re casting the rest of the chorus members today as well - she stops by her dressing room. For a minute, it feels just like high school did. The Cheerios stomped all over her then and made her feel worthless day in and day out. Even when she accomplished something, like landing the lead in West Side Story, one of her friendships was always hurt in the process.

This isn’t high school, she reminds herself. Santana is nothing more than an understudy to her role. They aren’t splitting shows like they might if this was an amateur show. It’s her dressing room with her name affixed prominently on the door. The gold star below it feels like so much more than the symbolic stickers that have been at the end of her name for ten years. It’s a modest room - she hasn’t really had a chance to personalize it yet - but it has a couch and a vanity just like she had always imagined. Santana will be squished into a dank space with all of the other understudies and background dancers. She’s not a star, nor does Rachel ever plan on giving her a chance to be.

 

She knows she’s acting like a complete diva these days, but the demands on her and the stakes on this show going off without a hitch are more pressure than Rachel has ever experienced. It seems like forever ago she was on the bottom rung of Cassandra July’s dance class, and now her director is telling her that she needs to build her professional team. She’s a nobody in the business, but somehow she’s going to be on the cover of New York Magazine when the show debuts in a couple of months. Agencies keep calling offering to represent her or to get an early scoop that they can beat the big reporters to. Really, she doesn’t know how anybody handles it without becoming an unbearable bitch because the curtain is still firmly closed and she’s already overwhelmed.

Having Santana nipping at her heels for a chance to play Fanny is definitely not going to help. Kurt tries to talk her off the ledge before Santana gets home that afternoon, but Rachel is inconsolable on the issue as it is. He doesn’t seem to understand why it’s such a big deal, but he’s also not the one that got tortured by Santana and her friends for years. Sure, Kurt took a slushie or a dumpster dive once in a while from the football boys, but it was nothing compared to the emotional abuse Quinn, Santana, and Brittany put her through on a daily basis. The physical pain of a slushie was nothing compared to the giggles behind her back or the insults about her appearance that got thrown around every time she dared to meet their eyes.

Santana is talented. Truth be told, Rachel doesn’t think Santana’s quite as polished since she never really put time in with professional vocal coaches, but Santana has something unique that Rachel knows she can never match.

But that doesn’t mean that she fits the part of Fanny.

And it definitely doesn’t mean she deserves it more than Rachel.

Plus, Santana’s talent doesn’t make her betrayal okay.

The smirk that immediately appears on Santana’s lips when she realizes Kurt and Rachel were talking about her just fuels Rachel’s infuriation. 

Rachel finally, finally thought that she and Santana were friends that could count on one another, yet here she is, finding herself completely blindsided by her roommate who knows how much Fanny means to her. Rachel doesn’t just play Fanny, she is Fanny.

The insults start flying immediately - Rachel’s never been one filter her true feelings. Santana may be able to sing the high notes and flirt enough with a director to leave an impression, but she doesn’t look the part at all.

Yet, Rachel isn’t Latina and she managed to pull off Maria in West Side Story just fine last year. She knows it’s a weak attempt, throwing Santana’s appearance into the argument, and it does nothing but egg Santana on.

Santana might not actually be from Lima Heights Adjacent, but she can cut a person down with her words while still maintaining all of the grace from her former Cheerio days. No matter what, Santana always has to have the last word in everything.

It’s not enough that Santana showed up at auditions unannounced and sang Rachel’s go-to audition song, but she has to make sure that she tears Rachel down as much as possible, leaving the little piece of confidence she has left in shreds.

Rachel breaks.

She turns and her palm meets Santana’s cheek with as much force as her tired body can manage.

As soon as her hand begins tingling from the sensation of the slap, she regrets it. Kurt is staring at her like she’s the biggest bitch in the world, but it’s the look of mortification on Santana’s face that makes her want to break on the spot.

But Santana’s phone rings and she walks away to answer it.

Sure enough, Santana will be her understudy. And her worst enemy.

 

Deep down, she really does want to apologize. She is angry with Santana for encroaching on something that feels so distinctly hers, but she doesn’t hate her. It’s impossible to hate the one girl that makes her feel like she actually deserves to have friends. She hasn’t forgotten the way that Santana held her and soothed her after she found out about the pregnancy test or how tightly Santana held her hand on the subway ride to the doctor’s office the next morning. 

She gets to rehearsal and is looking forward to the tiny bit of tranquility that her dressing room offers - it has a door unlike the majority of their Bushwick loft - and she really, really just needs a few minutes by herself.

Of course, Santana is standing at her vanity when she opens the door because it’s like she knows exactly how to get under Rachel’s skin so far that it makes Rachel want to tear herself apart just to make the pain and frustration stop.

For the second time in two days, she loses it on Santana, only this time Santana’s comebacks feel half-hearted.

Rupert interrupts them and Rachel’s worst nightmare comes true: the publicity for the show is now going to revolve around her connection to Santana instead of on her sheer talent as a young ingénue on the stage of her dreams.

God, as soon as the magazines and newspapers dig a little deeper and find out just how unfriendly they were to one another in the past, Rachel knows that she won’t get to recreate herself in New York the way she had always hoped. New York was always supposed to be her city, her escape into a better life where her past would stop haunting her. It was supposed to be the place where she proved to everybody that she was bigger than their small town minds and stupid insults.

Instead, she’s going to have to relive it all just because Santana has decided that she needs to prove that she can play in the same league as Rachel.

They only have twenty minutes until they’re due on stage for rehearsals, but Rachel can’t stop the hot, stinging tears that pour down her cheeks. She sits on the couch and pulls her legs up into her chest until she’s wrapped tightly around herself like it might actually keep her from completely falling apart. She focuses on her breathing, deep in through her nose, and releases it slowly from her mouth. The sobs cling to the back of her throat, wanting to erupt until exhaustion sets in and she can sleep, away from the world and away from Santana.

It doesn’t happen.

One of the dancers knocks on the door fifteen minutes later and Rachel clears her throat before responding that she’ll be there in a few minutes and sits down at the vanity to cover up the signs of vulnerability.

Of course one glance from Santana from across the stage tells Rachel that Santana knows exactly what she was doing in the dressing room and it makes her feel that much worse.

 

What Rachel really wants the most right now is a break from Santana. Instead, she finds that their schedules have become almost identical with Santana attending every rehearsal these days. Gunther puts them on the same shifts at the diner since it’ll inevitably bring crowds in. The story of his two menial singing waitresses making it big together is a headline that he is willing to sell. These days it feels like everybody is using her to make a quick buck. Even Isabelle Wright, Kurt’s boss at Vogue.com, has asked him if he thought Rachel and Santana would be interested in doing an exclusive shoot together and interview for the website. Rachel decides that she needs to find representation. She needs someone that will realize she’s worth selling as a solo act, instead of as this fake heartfelt story with her ex-best friend understudy.

She wants just one morning where she’s not fighting Santana for bathroom time in the loft. She wants one evening after a shift where she’s able to call her dads and cry about how her dream is turning in a nightmare without having Santana around the loft, eavesdropping through her privacy curtain.

Rachel needs to move out since Santana is obviously not going to give in. The decision comes through yet another fight where Kurt refuses to take her side and protect her from Santana’s selfish motives. As always, she’s nothing but an over-the-top diva who cares more about herself than everybody else. Rachel sees the way Kurt looks at her with something that is nearly disgust as she storms into her room to pack her belongings.

The whole time Rachel is packing, she weighs her options. Her dads gave her an emergency credit card when she moved to New York, but she doesn’t think they’d appreciate her charging a hotel room just so she can escape her roommates that obviously don’t understand what this role means to her. 

It’s not like she really has any other friends in New York. Most of the people at NYADA never gave two shits about her, and she hasn’t heard from a single one of them since she put in her leave of absence. Part of it she knows is jealousy; some of them had been at NYADA for longer than her, or came from families that moved to New York when they were toddlers to give them the best chance of making it big, and Rachel waltzed in and got what all of them wanted.

There’s only one friend Rachel has made at the diner, but somehow she doesn’t think that Dani will appreciate her trying to stay there when the whole reason she needs a place to stay is because Rachel is fighting with Dani’s girlfriend. Really, she wishes that Santana would just agree to move out since at least there’s someone else in this stupid city that actually cares about her.

That only leaves her with one viable option besides trying to find a homeless shelter, and she figures that her director won’t appreciate that popping up in the tabloids before the show even reaches previews.

Elliott looks surprised to see her with luggage in tow, but it seems that Kurt already updated him with the basic jist of the ongoing drama. He takes her in even though his shoebox-of-a-studio apartment is hardly comfortable enough for one person, nevermind two. She knows it’s because of her diva attitude that he quickly agrees to give up his bed for her, and he graciously makes up the couch for himself instead.

As soon as she’s settled in - it’s not like there’s anywhere for her to unpack anyway - Elliott takes off to meet Kurt. They’re scoping out bars for potential gigs for the band, though Rachel isn’t sure what the point is since there’s no chance that she and Santana are going to be working together more than necessary anytime soon. For the first time in weeks, Rachel is finally alone.

Being alone immediately covers her in a cloak of dread. She flips through the pictures on her phone and it’s only a dozen or so back before she sees a copy of the one she tore up and threw at Santana only a few hours ago. It was rash - Rachel’s diva temper has gotten the best of her on far too many occasions - though the look of despair Santana gave her as she walked in is one that is already haunting her.

Before she can stop it, she’s overcome with gut wrenching sobs, her makeup leaving dark smears all over the pillowcase. She curls into a ball on the middle of Elliott’s bed, which smells strongly of cheap cologne and hair gel. 

Funny Girl was supposed to be the prize for having endured years of fighting through the bad times in her life. Even though her director was already mentioning her getting nominated for a Tony before her twentieth birthday, all Rachel cares about is how the magic of her dream coming true feels ruined. The picture of her and Santana, the only girl that she actually thought she was friends with, fades as the phone screen clicks off and she’s left by herself without anybody to share her successes with.

It makes her miss Finn more than ever. She clutches at her side where his name is etched neatly on her skin as a constant reminder that he was the only person who ever really loved her. The pain of not being able to pick up the phone and hear his voice soothe her makes her stomach clench tightly for a minute and she grabs for the trashcan next to the bed, emptying the contents of her stomach into it. She doesn’t feel any better and she tries to wipe at her face with a tissue, but the tears just fall harder. She gasps for breath, willing for all of her pain to wash away with the tears, but her chest just tightens uncomfortably like her own body is rebelling against her.

Her dad answers the phone on the third ring.

“There’s my little Broadway starlet! I thought you were getting too famous to call your lame old dads!” he greets cheerfully, and she can hear pots clanking as he works on preparing dinner.

“Is that our favorite pumpkin?!” She hears her daddy’s voice call through from the other room. “Leroy, I want to talk to her!”

The joy in their voices at getting to speak with her makes her start crying loud enough that her dad finally realizes that she has failed to even say hello since he picked up the phone.

“Rachel, sweetie, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

She blows her nose and tries to compose herself enough to at least talk to her dad.

“I just th-thought that getting Fanny meant that everything else would be perfect,” she wails through the phone, her tears continuing to soak her cheeks.

“You did a shoot for New York Magazine and you have that interview with Broadway.com coming up in a few weeks and I’m already trolling the blogs to get the early news on the show. All of it is positive. You’re expected to be the next darling of Broadway. Everything is perfect, sweet pea. It’s exactly what you always wanted.”

“I don’t have any friends,” she states bluntly, and as soon as she says it, she knows it’s the stone cold truth. 

“Sweetie, that’s not true,” her dad tries to reassure. “Even though you didn’t have the conventional teenage experiences that does not mean that there aren’t people around that care about you. Kurt moved all the way to New York and wanted to be your roommate. Santana showed up on your doorstep. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t consider you a friend.”

It’s really no consolation considering the venom she and Santana have spat at one another these past couple of weeks. Santana has reminded her on multiple occasions that she’s a horrible person who only cares about herself.

“Let me talk to her, Leroy,” her daddy insists and she can hear the phone rattle as her dad passes it to him.

She sniffles into the phone as her daddy retrieves the phone from her dad. She can almost feel him worrying through the phone.

Her Daddy waits for her to speak; unlike Dad, he’s the patient one. She gets her talkative nature from her Daddy.

She cries for a few minutes before she finally feels like she can breathe again and she swallows air in big gulps, letting her heart rate fall to a normal level.

“Tell me where it hurts,” her daddy says softly on the other end. It makes her crack a small smile. He used to say it all the time when she was younger, whether it was for a skinned knee or hurt feelings.

“Why am I so abrasive that nobody can stand being friends with me?” she asks him, ignoring his question altogether. He knows exactly where it hurts this time.

“Because it’s hard to transplant a star from the sky and make them fit in with normal people,” he tells her seriously. “Rach, you’re beyond talented and you’re incredibly special and people don’t understand the stress that puts you under.”

“I’d give it all up to have one friend that actually cares enough to stick around,” Rachel tells him, tears burning in her tired eyes again at the memory of Santana calling her awful.

Her daddy sighs on the other end of the line, obviously at a loss for words. She knows she’s breaking their hearts - getting her on Broadway meant that her dads worked overtime to pay for expensive lessons and classes for her entire childhood to give her an edge. It meant that they spent all their time running her from extracurriculars every day, hardly ever getting a chance to sit down together as a family. They gave up everything for eighteen years to make sure that she could achieve even her most lofty aspirations, and now she’s telling them that she doesn’t even want it.

They stay on the line for a few more minutes and she listens to her dads breathe, the two of them hovering over the phone nervously. She knows how worried they are, but she knows she can’t help that until she regains control over her own life. They can’t save her from herself.

She makes an excuse to hang up and they don’t fight with her on it. Instead, they remind her that they love her and assure her that it’ll all work out just like they always do. She knows that they wholeheartedly believe that this is just one of her over-dramatic moments, not that she’s truthfully miserable living out her dreams.

Maybe they’re right. Her heart is telling her that they’re wrong and that she should have never taken a role on Broadway this young in the first place. As much as she knows that her talent is worthy of the role, she’s not prepared for everything else that comes with being the lead in a highly publicized revival.

For the first time in weeks, she finally looks over the list of agents and publicists and managers that Rupert gave her after he scheduled two interviews for her and Santana to do together. She needs representation. They may not be her friends, but they’ll be people that are always on her side at least. Even if she has to pay them to do so.

She Googles the names of the people on the list and makes notes on each. They all have success stories plastered on their firms’ pages, but a little digging gives her more dirt on the agents. She picks her top three and leaves messages on their answering machines to set up meetings.

Come Monday morning, she takes off right from rehearsal for her first meeting. Santana looks confused when she hops on the uptown train instead of heading downtown for their typical shift at the diner, but they don’t speak as they part ways.

The office is fancy, with shiny tiled floors and plush, plum colored couches in the waiting room. The secretary checks her name on the list of appointments and gives her a warm smile before handing her some forms on a clipboard and asking her if she’d like a beverage.

A moment later, an intern delivers a steaming mug of green tea with honey. She looks older than Rachel, probably around a senior in college, but she eyes Rachel curiously as she passes over the mug. Rachel gives her a big, fake smile and thanks her for the tea before the girl scurries away into a back office again without so much as a word. It’s odd, the way that even something so minor makes her feel like this life is anything but her own. She’s used to the rolling eyes and looks of disdain from her peers.

As soon as she gives the secretary back the forms, a woman in a dark gray suit pops her head out from behind a frosted glass door. The woman looks severe and unwelcoming with her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun, though Rachel can’t deny that she commands the presence of a room with no real effort. Rachel hops to her feet immediately and bounds across the room to where the woman stands in the doorway.

“Rachel Berry, young Broadway ingénue.” It’s a statement, not a question. Rachel knows that as much as she searched out her possible agents, the agents probably dug up twice as much information on her.

Rachel nods, the movement timid and shy, completely unlike herself. 

“I’m Alison Napolitano. Please come in.”

Rachel moves past Alison and into the office. The door clicks behind her and she slips into an armchair that sits in front of the large, dark wood desk. Alison moves behind her desk and the chair creaks beneath her when she leans forward to read the forms Rachel had filled out in the waiting room.

“Nineteen, from some cow town in Ohio, lasted barely more than a semester at NYADA before dropping out for the role as Fanny Brice on Broadway.”

Alison seems completely unimpressed with Rachel’s life. Rachel feels self-conscious by hearing it read to her. She’s a nobody in this industry and Alison, along with every other agent in New York, will probably laugh her right out of their office.

Rachel sits up straighter in her chair, edging forward towards Alison’s desk. She’s not a shy little girl from Ohio anymore, no matter what has happened over the past few weeks. Her name will be on a marquee soon, regardless of what Alison Napolitano thinks of her talent.

“Look, I’m young and inexperienced. But I have a contract in a major production and I’m being scheduled for interviews and events all over New York to promote it. You can be ahead of the curve and take on a young girl with a promising future, or you can regret it down the line when I’m a household name.”

It’s typical Rachel Berry - blunt and unforgiving for her talent. She’s a star, and Alison Napolitano would benefit from understanding that.

“Nobody in this office is doubting your talent, Ms. Berry,” Alison says calmly, pulling the dark rimmed glasses from her face and depositing them onto her desk with a sigh. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you’re the best young actress that has ever had an opportunity to work with my firm, because that would be a blatant lie. You have no idea what this industry is like yet. Interviews and appearances with smaller news outlets is only the beginning. The show is still a few months from opening night. I’ve talked to your producer and I know his expectations for this show and your career. Any person that works with Broadway stars is well aware that you’re looking for representation. There are people that will sit behind big oak desks and promise you that you’ll be on a big screen in two years and winning an EGOT before you turn 25 just so that you give them a huge cut of your hard earned paycheck. I’m not the person that is going to sit here and stroke your ego to watch you fall apart when you can’t attain those unrealistic goals for your career.”

Rachel gapes at her. Alison is straightforward in a way that Rachel isn’t used to. People have told her that she’s going to fail. She’s used to people hating her for her talent. But Alison isn’t at all. Rachel thinks that Alison does actually believe that she’s talented, but she’s not in the business of padding young egos and giving false hope.

She has a list of questions in her purse to make sure that Alison is, in fact, the best person to represent her. However, her gut is telling her that she doesn’t need that list to figure it out.

Alison starts talking about realistic goals and building a team with an agent, manager, and publicist and Rachel finds herself nodding repeatedly, though she’s not sure that she absorbs anything except that Alison knows exactly what she needs, probably even more than she does herself.

A half an hour later, Alison is handing her a contract to look over and walks her back into the lobby. Rachel shakes her hand and tucks the folder under her arm as she leaves, her head spinning with all of the decisions she needs to make.

She would cook for Elliott, but she’s useless in the kitchen, and they’re both too broke to eat takeout every night, so she settles on making a fresh salad when she gets home, throws some in a Tupperware container for him to eat later, and eats on the couch while she reads over the paperwork that Alison gave her. 

Technically she has a meeting with another agent tomorrow to figure out who the best fit for her is, but Alison’s no-nonsense approach has drawn Rachel in more than she expected.

She calls the other agents and cancels her meetings before signing the forms for Alison. She refrains from adding the gold star-there’s one on her dressing room door these days so there’s no need for metaphors-but it still feels like an accomplishment nonetheless. She’s a real, contracted Broadway actress who needs representation.

She could get used to this life.

 

It takes another week before she finds time to meet Kurt for lunch. Between meeting with her new team - on top of Alison, she’s got a publicist and a manager now, both handpicked by Alison and approved by herself - and rehearsals and filling her schedule up with interviews and public appearances, Rachel hasn’t had any time for her only remaining quasi-friend.

They meet at a café a couple of blocks from the theater since she has to be back for afternoon rehearsals soon anyway. She’s glad to see him and she hugs him tightly, even though he’s in his diner uniform and he smells like last night’s greasy onion rings. He returns the gesture easily, like things are the same as they were a few weeks ago. 

But things are nothing like they had been. Kurt is Santana’s roommate. They probably watch reality shows together after shifts at the diner or the band rehearsals that she’s never informed of anymore. Kurt probably gives Santana beauty tips - though it’s not like she needs it - and they probably have matching nightly moisturizing routines by now.

Kurt is talking, but she’s not focused and she shakes her head. He gives her a weird look and cocks an eyebrow at her as the waitress drops off their drinks.

“Rach?”

“Hmm?” She squeezes a lemon into her water and takes a sip, focusing on his gaze.

“I asked you how everything is going with the show. Santana says that your producer is really pushing this Lima story. It sounds like you two are going to have a bunch of press coming up for opening night.”

Lead fills her stomach, pulling her down like a weight. Of course she knows about the scheduled interviews-her team has them all inputted on the shared Rachel Berry Google calendar that owns her life these days-but she’s not looking forward to what kinds of things she’s going to be asked about her life before New York.

Kurt isn’t an ally these days, not since he pretty much sided with Santana in the fight that tore them apart.

So instead of confiding in him, she pastes on the calm smile that she’s perfected. She may not be Quinn Fabray, but Rachel definitely knows how to act like everything is perfect.

It’s a stilted conversation with Rachel only offering enough to placate Kurt’s questions about what’s going on with her life. Of course, Elliott has probably informed him already about the nightly phone calls to her fathers that have taken the place of roommate bonding. Beyond the show and her commitments in relation to it, Rachel has nothing else happening. There are no band gigs or movie nights, no outings for drinks with colleagues after a particularly hard rehearsal.

She’s happy when the conversation turns to Kurt’s life instead, and he starts rambling endlessly about Blaine’s NYADA audition and wedding planning. She knows that Kurt is high maintenance and dramatic, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks the situation is going to work out in his favor. However, she smiles at the right moments and offers him her wedding binder that is tucked into one of her boxes, and they get through the meal without any real hitch.

He walks back towards the theater with her and she doesn’t miss the way that some of the backup dancers check him out as they smoke cigarettes by the side door. He kisses both of her cheeks and squeezes her shoulder lightly before walking away, his eyes already focused on his cell phone before he turns the corner.

She misses Kurt.

She misses Santana.

This is Funny Girl. This is what she’s always wanted. Rachel Berry is meant to be Fanny Brice in the biggest revival on Broadway in the past decade.

As much as she wants her friends back, it’s not worth giving up the role she was born to play.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments I got on the first chapter. Some people asked if this story will be completely in Rachel’s point of view. The short answer is that it won’t, but it also won’t be an even split between Rachel and Santana’s viewpoint either.
> 
> Much thanks to my lovely beta, quasisuspect, for taking time out of studying for the bar exam to help me with this chapter.

Rachel is grateful that the first interview is for a magazine. The idea of being on camera with Santana sitting next to her in a leather jacket with her hair wavy and her makeup being the perfect shade of smoky gray to pull out the deep brown of her eyes makes Rachel feel completely inferior.

Of course, Kenzie, her manager, has made sure she was prepared as well, but she’s anything but comfortable in the five inch heels and skintight jeans that she literally had to wrangle herself into. She knows the look is not effortless on her, not in the way that everything seems to be on Santana.

She sits up straight as they wait for Michael Dempsey, the reporter from PlayBill that is supposed to be meeting them for lunch. Santana taps away at her cell phone, ignoring Rachel sitting beside her completely.

Finally, a man in dark rimmed glasses and a gray suit weaves through the restaurant tables and drops his messenger bag next to the table before turning to greet them. Rachel stands up to shake his hand enthusiastically and he smiles widely at her before turning to Santana. Santana barely looks up from her phone and it takes all the strength Rachel has to not kick her under the table to force her to get her ass into gear.

They order food - Rachel’s team reminded her about thirty times to order the least messy salad possible - and make small talk as they wait for their food to arrive. Michael is bubbly and Rachel has a feeling that she could talk about old Broadway shows with him for hours without getting bored. Santana looks unamused in general, but Rachel is glad to see that she at least tucked her phone into her purse for the time being.

As soon as the waiter drops off their plates, Rachel can feel the change in Michael’s demeanor, from warm and friendly to serious reporter. Knots tie themselves tight in the pit of her stomach, and the idea of even taking one bite of her food makes her sick. She steals glances at Santana, who is picking at her own salad, taking tiny, polite bites in between sips of her water.

“So you two both went to the same high school, starred in the same glee club, and then moved in together when you headed out here?” Michael asks casually, though Rachel is acutely aware of the recorder he’s placed on the table next to his untouched food.

Rachel feels the burn of Santana’s eyes on the side of her head, obviously hoping that Rachel will field the question for both of them. Santana is her understudy. The only reason she’s even at this meeting is that Rupert thinks it would be good press for the show as a whole to have this unique backstory. She’s stuck pretending that they made it here together, not that Santana waltzed into her dream and has been sticking to her like an unwanted barnacle ever since she showed up unannounced at the door of the loft.

She swallows her bite of salad and clears her throat before answering.

“We did go to high school together back in Ohio,” Rachel confirms, forcing herself to stick to answering the questions directly. With a little digging, Michael could find out everything about their murky past, but Rachel is willing to answer honestly without giving too much away. “We were in the same glee club for the majority of high school, though Santana left to form an all-girls group during our senior year. When they lost to us at Sectionals, we welcomed their members to join forces with our club again and we were able to come to a compromise that allowed us to work together and win Nationals.”

Michael hums under his breath for a minute, jotting some notes down onto a yellow legal notepad.

“How did you both end up in New York?” he follows up, pen ready in his right hand as he grabs a quick bite of his food with his left one.

Rachel pauses, giving Santana an opportunity to answer. She knows how she got here; it had always been her plan. But why was Santana here when Los Angeles would have given her more opportunities for chasing fame?

“Well, I can answer for myself at least,” Rachel finally says, her cheeks burning under Santana’s unwavering gaze. “I always knew that New York was where I was meant to end up since the first time my dads brought me here to visit when I was in middle school. I looked into acting schools, and NYADA ended up being the fit that I had always imagined. My audition process was rocky, but ultimately I got my acceptance letter and I moved out here to pursue my education and career.”

The ball is in Santana’s court now; Rachel isn’t going to answer for her on how she ended up here when it isn’t something Santana has ever bothered telling her about in the first place.

Michael looks pointedly at Santana, who takes her time chewing and takes a large gulp of her water before she even looks at him.

“For me, coming to New York was just for the adventure. I actually went to college for a semester on a full cheerleading scholarship, but life on a in Kentucky just wasn’t working for me. So I packed up and left. I had liked New York when we came for Nationals a couple of years ago, so I hopped on the train and started a new life.”

This seems to pique Michael’s interest. Rachel’s story is cookie cutter: a young girl from a small town with huge Broadway dreams. Santana is different than what he’s used to and it makes Rachel envious for a moment that she isn’t more unique.

“It’s not the first time we’ve heard of someone moving to New York to take a chance on making it big with no real backup plan. Did you have anything drawing you to New York beyond having visited once in high school?”

Rachel can see that he’s fishing for an epic friendship story, of how Santana knew that she could team up with Rachel and they could conquer the world together. Telling him that would be a complete lie. Rachel knows that the only reason Santana ever moved in with her and Kurt was purely out of convenience due to her impromptu move to the city. She wants this interview to go well, but not at the stake of her being a liar marring her budding reputation.

“Knowing Berry, er, Rachel, and our other roommate, Kurt, definitely helped,” Santana says, obviously trying to appease him without going too deeply into the truth. Her eyes flit to meet Rachel’s, almost like she’s hoping for approval. Rachel looks away and pushes some lettuce around on her dish.

“Rumor has it that your other roommate, Kurt, is also a student at NYADA. Is that right?”

“Yes, Kurt and I both applied during our senior year, and Ms. Tibideaux decided to take him after letting him perform at the NYADA Winter Showcase in December. To be honest, he really deserved a spot. His original audition was breathtaking.”

“And why did you not apply to NYADA as well, Ms. Lopez?” Michael questions, looking like he’s excited to dive deeper into Santana’s past.

Santana bites her lip for a moment and Rachel doesn’t miss the nervous way that her fingers play with the edge of the napkin on her lap.

“Musical theater isn’t something I dreamed about from birth. Honestly, until we performed West Side Story during senior year, I had never cared about it at all. But I loved playing Anita in that production and I figured that auditioning for something like Funny Girl would be worth a shot. Before that, the stage had always kind of belonged to Rachel and Kurt. There was no chance that I was going to get in ahead of either of them.”

“How does it feel to be playing the understudy to a girl that you admit overshadowed you all through high school as well?”

Rachel internally cringes at Michael’s offhand question. Nothing sets Santana off faster than being compared to someone else’s talent.

“Well, Michael, I don’t think I’ve ever lived in Rachel’s shadow. We have always had very different goals and interests. I was a Nationally ranked cheerleader for the entirety of my high school experience. Glee club was something fun that I did on the side as a break from my athletic pursuits. For Rachel, glee club was pretty much her entire existence. So yeah, maybe I’m performing under her in this production, but I got here because I’m talented and I have potential to grow in an industry that I never even considered as a career option until I moved to New York.”

Rachel’s jaw nearly drops at how poised Santana remains through her entire response and Michael is eating it up. Santana is this underdog story here. Rachel wouldn’t be surprised if this article turns into something about Santana working her way up the ranks into stardom, having come from no musical theater background or training.

It’s unfair, but as she’s read these magazines for years, Rachel knows that being different sells copies. And she isn’t any different than most people starring on Broadway shows these days.

The questions turn towards the production then, and Santana sits back as Rachel rambles on, promoting the show just as she was trained to do. She feels like a deflated balloon, but she maintains her best smile and tries to sound bubbly with excitement over every question he shoots at her.

Finally, the bill is paid and he shakes both of their hands, and slips each of them a business card before he leaves them standing next to one another on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant.

“See you at rehearsal, Berry,” Santana comments, her eyes already glued back to her phone as she walks away, leaving Rachel standing there by herself.

She should be grateful that the interview went off without a hitch. The horrible memories of high school with Santana could have easily been dragged out over lunch, leaving their history painted in the print of a publication. In the grand scheme of things, she knows that the interview was successful and that Rupert will be pleased enough with the results. It’s her job to keep everybody happy, and so far she’s managed to do that.

Yet her heart feels heavy in her chest. Santana basically admitted in that interview that this role isn’t even her dream, yet Michael fawned over her like she was something they haven’t seen in a lifetime. Performing in Funny Girl is something Rachel has dreamed of since she was three years old. Santana probably didn’t even know what the show was about until she was handed her official script a few weeks ago.

She still has over an hour until they’re due at rehearsal, but she heads for the theater anyway, figuring that she can at least bask in the quietness of her dressing room until their call time.

Santana is nowhere to be seen when she arrives, and Rachel quickly closes herself in her dressing room before anybody can disturb her. Her feet ache from walking in heels for so many blocks, but it’s a relief to yank off the jeans and swap them for yoga pants and an off-the-shoulder NYADA sweatshirt.

Rachel collapses back onto the couch and concentrates on her breathing, counting her breaths until the tightness in her chest starts to subside, only to be left with the rhythm of her thudding heart.

A knock on the dressing room door pulls her out of her dazed state and she bolts upright and runs a hand through her hair before calling for the person to enter. Paolo, the male lead playing Nick Arnstein, is standing there, looking unamused to be performing the task of fetching her when it could have easily been done by a chorus member.

“Uh, hi,” she mumbles, yanking her hair up into a quick ponytail and straightening her sweatshirt as she scans the room for her sneakers.

“Rupert wants to go through some of our scenes today rather than work on the choreography. Find Santana too, he wants to run it through with both of you at once so we can move on.”

With that, Paolo disappears again, leaving the dressing room door wide open.

Rachel hasn’t missed the way that Paolo’s eyes appreciate Santana’s figure every time she walks out onto the stage. Rachel might look like Fanny, but Santana looks like every guy’s wet dream.

She begrudgingly ties her sneakers and goes off in search of Santana in the wings of the stage. Rachel finds her sitting with a few of the background dancers, laughing happily. Most of them ignore her presence as she walks up to their little circle, but Santana’s eyes meet hers dead on.

“We’re running lines with Paolo today instead of doing choreography,” Rachel tells her simply, willing her cheeks to not turn red over feeling the other girls eying her up. She’s sure that they’re wondering how this teenage girl could be the lead role with Paolo in the first place and it takes all of her focus to keep her back straight under their judgmental gaze.

Santana gives her new friends a simple goodbye and pops up from her spot on the floor before tailing Rachel to meet up with Paolo.

Rachel tries to not be jealous. Hanging out with chorus members might be fun, but everybody in this industry is cutthroat. Santana doesn’t need to keep her distance; in reality her role really isn’t any more important than those girls’ are.

Rachel has everything to lose. So while it sucks to realize that she’s not particularly cared for by the cast, she also tries to keep her eye on the prize.

Paolo is standing in the middle of the stage with Rupert as the girls approach, jeans slung low on his hips with his hands buried in his pockets. He looks every bit as seasoned as he did when Rachel did her chemistry read with him for the part, and so far they haven’t spent much time rehearsing together at all.

Of course, Rachel has all of her lines memorized - it’s a skill that she prides herself greatly on - but she notices Paolo’s script is tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, corners dog-eared and pages covered in highlighting and pencil marks.

Santana’s script still looks pretty much brand new as she rolls it between her hands as she waits. Rachel thinks of her own copy, which is lying on the vanity in her dressing room, looking worse for wear than Paolo’s copy.

Fortunately, Rupert picks a scene that she knows inside and out and he calls her to her mark beside Paolo, leaving Santana to stand awkwardly on the edge of the stage. She catches a quick glimpse of Santana thumbing through her script, looking for the current scene before Paolo steps in front of her view and says his first line.

Paolo may be older and more distinguished in the industry, but Rachel can’t deny that they have good chemistry. Rehearsing with him comes easily and she delivers line after line, playing off his little gestures.

Rupert seems pleased after only a few run throughs and tells them to take a five minute break before Santana takes her turn. Paolo’s understudy, a dark, broody guy in his 30s, slouches in a seat at the front of the theater, mumbling lines under his breath as he reads his script. She thinks about going to sit next to him, but she doesn’t recall his name, so she chooses instead to grab a bottle of water and takes a seat closer to Rupert instead.

Santana looks nervous, Rachel observes, as she heads towards the middle of the stage. Rachel focuses on her little ticks, making mental notes to pay attention to her own gestures in her next run through. Paolo runs a hand through his hair and waits patiently for Santana to be ready.

On Rupert’s cue, Paolo delivers his first line effortlessly, and he attempts to look down into Santana’s eyes, but she’s staring right past him, obviously trying to remember her own line. She fumbles a couple of words, but recovers well, allowing Paolo to continue without starting over. It’s not enough that most audiences would realize, but Rachel can’t help but feel happy that Santana isn’t going to be able to walk right past her into the leading role without a struggle.

Santana’s turn takes nearly double the amount of time that Rachel’s did, between repeating scenes for screwing up lines and Rupert calling out directions to help her posture, her delivery, and her basic approach to Paolo as a love interest. Paolo seems frustrated at being forced to waste his time training newbies, and finally Rupert releases him for the day, allowing his understudy to step in instead.

Rachel leaves rehearsals on a bit of a high. For the first time since Santana joined the production, Rachel isn’t worried about losing her spot to her high school tormentor, and that makes everything feel minutely better, if only for an evening.

 

The night of happiness quickly turns into a pity party when Rachel gets home to see that Elliott is missing once again. She has a bottle of red wine and her leftovers from lunch, which turns into a one person feast on the coffee table.

She pulls up her email on her phone as she eats, and notices a list of possible events with links to her Google calendar that her publicist and manager have added. Some of them are small affairs, like mall appearances and meet and greets with Funny Girl fan clubs, but others are major interviews that Rupert had mentioned to her.

Her days are filling up faster than she can protest and she notices overlaps with her diner hours on pretty much every weekend from now until the show opens. Even if Alison and her team aren’t saying it outright, the message is obvious. If she’s going to be a star, she needs to leave the safety net of a menial weekly paycheck behind.

Rachel’s a professional, so although it’s just a job at a touristy diner in Midtown, she still makes the trek with her uniform newly dry cleaned in order to quit.

Gunther doesn’t seem surprised that she’s leaving - it was assumed that she would be doing so when the show started anyway - but he seems confused about her big speech about the opportunities this position offered her as he accepts the uniform wrapped in plastic.

It hurts a little to walk out of that back office and through the diner as the girls set up for the lunch rush. The diner was the place that she found out that she would be playing Fanny Brice. It’s where her friendship with Santana really blossomed. At this point, it’s the only real tie she has to Kurt and Dani since she doesn’t see them for band rehearsals or social outings these days.

None of them say goodbye to her as she heads back out onto the street, forcing herself to not glance back.

It’s a Sunday and she has no commitments for the day - it’s the first time in weeks - so rather than rushing back to the subway for her next stop, she enjoys the bustle of people through midtown and tries to remember the magic that made her fall in love with New York in the first place.

Two blocks into walking around, she realizes that midtown is probably not the place to find magic. There are people standing around in filthy Elmo costumes on every corner, men keep trying to convince her to ride on sightseeing buses, and there’s nothing to enjoy besides the hordes of overwhelmed tourists with their cameras and stupidly large backpacks.

She begins to walk away from the crowds, people-watching as she goes. It’s without conscious thought that she ends up walking uptown until she’s staring at the face of a green witch hanging above the Gershwin Theatre.

Her Broadway dreams had planted roots in her heart way before she snuck onto the stage inside this building with Kurt during their junior year of high school. She still remembers watching YouTube clips of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth belting out the songs in the original production, trying to match them note-for-note like she could one day fill their shoes.

Broadway had felt like a far off dream on that trip. She never expected that less than three years later, she would be on her own stage with her name lighting up the marquee. That dream life always came with an epic romance and friends that are sitting in the front row on opening night. She knows her dads will be there and that they’ll make sure that she has a giant bouquet of flowers on her dressing room vanity. Mr. Schue might even make the trip, seemingly out of obligation to his glee club prodigy. But somehow, it still feels like a letdown that besides Kurt, none of the people she always imagined being there will be in the audience when the curtain comes up for the first time.

Rachel walks into the theater and heads straight for the ticket booth. It’s a show that she had made a point of seeing within her first month of living in New York, even though she had already seen it with her dads the first time they visited New York. At the time, Kurt still wasn’t living here and Cassandra July was making her cry herself to sleep pretty much every night. Broadway was the only thing Rachel had that made her feel like she was supposed to be here following what still seemed like a pipe dream.

She hadn’t felt the awe that had accompanied seeing her first show with her dads when she was a kid. Over the years, it had grown into appreciation more than fascination. These days, shows come with mental notes of improvements and noticing missed cues or wrong steps. The simple joy of the music and the storyline is buried beneath her critical analysis, only strengthened by classes at NYADA and spending day after day in rehearsals with people that point out everybody’s mistakes.

Broadway is no longer her source of entertainment. It’s her professional career.

The lady at the ticket booth gives her a sad smile, like buying a single ticket for tonight’s show is something to feel sorry about. Rachel figures that the woman believes her to be a tourist, here looking for the magic that New York has always promised her. And for the day, Rachel wants to be that person, so far removed from her daily life in the ever-growing spotlight.

Rachel tucks the ticket into her bag before she heads back out onto the street to kill a few hours.

Maybe reading a book while sitting in Bryant Park isn’t some fabulous outing, but she sips at her soy latte from under the shade of the umbrella of the table. People walk by paying her no mind and it’s a blissful afternoon of feeling like she can just be a normal person without an agent running her life and a former best friend trying to steal her job. It’s a perfectly mundane afternoon and she basks in the peacefulness of it.

The giddy excitement grows as the hours creep by until she can’t help but stick her earbuds in to listen to Idina belt some of her favorite songs in the world as she walks back uptown towards the theatre. She moves at the pace of the businessmen, slipping between the tourists on the sidewalk. It’s easy to fall into the flow of New York, and it makes her comfortable to know that she can disappear into the crowd and just be another passing face in a throng of people.

The usher takes her ticket as he scans the barcode, reminding her to enjoy the show before directing her up the stairs into the theatre. Rachel knows that it’s something he says to every person after he scans their ticket, but she takes it as a reminder that this isn’t an assignment. She can just sit back and appreciate the performances without being compelled to critique it.

Her seat isn’t the best in the house by any means, but it’s good enough that she smiles as she sits down, her eyes scanning the intricate props lining the stage’s boundaries. A family settles in beside her as she flips through her PlayBill, reading the bios of the cast. The father looks a little grumpy at being dragged to a show, but Rachel realizes that it’ll be worth it as soon as he sees the looks of joy on the faces of his two little girls. The mother sits herself down next to Rachel, placing the girls, who Rachel guesses are about eight and ten, between her and her husband.

The two girls are chatting excitedly, pointing at the set and filling with wonder about all that is to come.

_“Rachel, sweetie, the people behind you aren’t going to be able to see if you keep bouncing in your seat.”_

_The man behind them chuckles as her dad places his hand on her thigh to try and calm her jittery body. She grips at her PlayBill, having already read it cover to cover, and checks her watch obsessively, waiting to hear the first notes ring out from the orchestra._

_She knows the entire score, having listened to the original soundtrack so many times that her cd was actually wearing out. She hums the opening notes and props herself up on her knees to get a better view of the stage over the woman in front of her._

_“Sorry, it’s her first time in New York and she’s been obsessed with Broadway since she was three.”_

_The man behind them laughs again, but it doesn’t deter Rachel from her sheer excitement, even though she knows the man is laughing at her._

_“Well, it would have been even better if we could have came for my birthday before Idina Menzel left the show,” Rachel reminds her fathers, still upset that she missed her chance to see Idina play Elphaba live._

_But it’s hard to be upset when the orchestra finally starts playing and she realizes that it’s so much better in this huge acoustically-sound theatre, rather than the tinny sound from her boombox ricocheting off of the tile in her bathroom._

_She tries to settle in her seat, her heart pounding in anticipation. The stage fills with the chorus members for the opening number and she’s mesmerized, glued to the spot as she tries to take it all in at once. She misses the look her dads share over her head as Glinda descends from the rafters, but it’s one of joy at making their little girl’s dream come true._

As soon as the show begins, the girls settle in, the younger one snuggling into her mother’s shoulder affectionately. Rachel misses most of the opening number as she watches them, their faces alight with wonder at what’s to come.

At intermission, the father takes off to buy them some refreshments and the girls start asking a million questions about the show. The mother seems overwhelmed as she tries to Google the answers for her curious children as fast as they’re asking them.

“May I?” Rachel pops in after one of the girls asks if Elphaba is really a wicked witch.

The woman sighs in relief and nods gratefully at her.

With that, Rachel launches into the tale of Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship and how it’s not a story about good and evil as much as it is about the journey that they both take. The two little girls hang onto her every word, every once in a while turning to make sure that their mom is listening to the story too. Rachel eats it up, happy to educate them on something that she has loved so dearly since she was their age.

The mom mouths “thank you” at her as the curtain comes up again for Act II and Rachel smiles at her graciously before turning her attention back to the stage.

At the end of the show, Rachel waits for the theatre to clear out, but the family lingers next to her as people start making their way down the aisle.

“Thanks so much for answering the girls’ questions,” the mom says again, patting the younger girl’s head. “We just moved to New York and they’ve never seen a real Broadway show before.”

“Well, I hope you liked it!” she says to the girls, who both nearly squeal with their happiness. “I’m actually going to be starring in the revival of Funny Girl that opens in a few weeks,” Rachel admits.

The woman’s eyes go wide at the fact that she’s spent the last two hours sitting next to a Broadway star.

“I’d love if you and the girls would come see it at some point,” she tells the mom, and the girls squeal again at the idea of seeing another show so soon. Rachel rifles through her bag for an old receipt and a pen. She scribbles her name and number on the back of it. “Call me and I’ll make sure that there are tickets left at the box office for you. It wasn’t that long ago that I was sitting here for the first time and it’s where my dreams began too.”

The mother hugs her in gratification and the girls thank her a million times before she finally ducks out of the theatre.

She can be that inspiration for little girls that she once craved so desperately in her own life. She wants the show to be a hit - a successful show means accolades and bigger contracts, after all - but more than that she wants to give those girls someone to look up to, someone to aspire to be when they grow up.

Tomorrow is a day filled with fifteen hours of rehearsal and a lunch meeting with her PR team. These days of blissful peace are going to be few and far between from now on, but she’s ready for it. Because when she does have them, she knows there’s always a place for her in an audience, a place where she can remember why it’s always worth busting her ass day after day.


	3. Chapter 3

Rachel’s POV

She probably wouldn’t have agreed to go Kurt’s gig now that she and Santana are officially kicked out of the band, but he looks so pleased with landing them a prime spot in the Friday night lineup, that she knows she can’t let him down. Of course, Santana agrees to go as well, though that makes more sense since her girlfriend is still actually in the band. 

Rachel spends more time than usual in front of a mirror that evening - thankfully Elliott had to leave early to set up so they’re not vying for bathroom time - in an attempt to recreate the look that her new stylist keeps her in for public appearances. Of course, she’s nowhere near the same skill level, so she ends up with makeup that comes off as barely passable by her standards. 

The bar is moderately crowded when Rachel gets there and she finds a seat with a decent view of the small stage. She’s really early - if there’s one thing that she learned from Cassandra July, it’s that on time is too late - so she’s got her own space at a table. 

There’s hardly an empty seat in the place by the time Kurt’s set is scheduled to begin, and the volume has steadily increased over the past hour as people began drinking. Rachel keeps an eye on her glass of water - the bartender looked at her with a cocked eyebrow when she ordered it, but she can’t risk damage to her vocal chords this close to opening night - as everybody else sucks down beers and overpriced pink martinis.

Five minutes beyond when the set should have started, Santana finally wanders in. Immediately Rachel feels her chest tighten at the sight of her; Santana obviously chose looking flawless over being on time. Her outfit is easily one of the sexiest things Rachel has ever seen on someone who isn’t actually a professional model and she struggles to avoid staring at every curve, wondering how Santana manages to pull it off.

Instead, she launches into a speech she had prepared in her head about acting like friends for the sake of Kurt. It comes out harsher than she intends it, though it’s easy to ignore Santana reminding her that she’d easily win in a fight - Rachel doesn’t doubt it’s true as she’s always been non-violent whereas Santana likes a good excuse to lash out - and she bites her lip to stop herself from continuing.

To her surprise, Santana agrees that they should be civil, if only for tonight. Rachel figures it has something to do with Dani; Santana will never admit how whipped she is in her relationships, but she knows that Santana would play nice for the sake of her girlfriend’s gig, especially because it’s also for Kurt. Santana is selfish when it comes to a lot of things, but she does have a tendency to bend over backwards for people she cares about.

Their friends appear on stage only a moment after Santana’s arrival, and Santana plops down on a free stool at Rachel’s table without invitation. The group looks kind of ridiculous in their matching suits, though Rachel would never tell them that. Kurt thrives on making fashion decisions, even if most people find his choices to be a little outrageous.

He seems nervous for the front man of a band; as much as he loves to perform, he always seems to have a harder time being himself under a spotlight. Rachel feels a pang of guilt shoot through her stomach when Kurt comments on the fact that the band has reduced from Pamela Lansbury down to a trio, and he avoids catching her eye as he addresses the crowd. However, Santana casts her a sidelong glance, as though she’s feeling the same way about their fight tearing apart the band.

It’s not like Rachel really has time these days to commit to getting a small band full of overzealous musical theater kids and wannabe rock stars off the ground. If nothing else, being part of Pamela Lansbury was more about feeling included than actually making music that would get them into the spotlight some day. It was selfish of her, she knows that. Elliott and Dani - and even her friends - would kill for the band to just land a gig where they were actually being paid to perform. For them, it was always more about making it big than it was about having fun and enjoying being teenagers for just a little bit longer.

But band rehearsals were a much needed break from NYADA’s high performance standards and auditioning for every role that popped up anywhere in the tri-state area. Even when she landed Funny Girl, hanging out and rehearsing with the band was a sanctuary away from a cranky director and a jaded, veteran co-star.

Kurt, Dani, and Elliott look like they’re having the time of their life on the tiny stage. The crowd is into it and sing along with the chorus enthusiastically. Santana sits with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, though her foot is tapping against the leg of her bar stool like she can’t help but enjoy the performance. Rachel realizes that it’s probably not the first time that Santana has heard this; they tend to rehearse in the loft in the evenings and Santana is still living there. Another pang of guilt courses through her at the realization. She’s always missing out now that she doesn’t see them on a regular basis.

One Three Hill takes a short break after a few songs and Rachel heads to the bar for a drink, vocal chords be damned. A glass of wine will at least take the edge off of her emotions enough that she’s hoping she can actually enjoy the second half of the performance.

When she gets back to the table, Santana is missing. She scans the crowd by the bar and the bathroom, but doesn’t see Santana’s long hair or incredibly short skirt in either place.

It’s a bit of shock when she finally sees Santana. Her attention is brought back to the stage by someone clearing their throat into the microphone. Dani is standing there with her guitar and she runs a hand through her hair as she waits for the crowd to settle a little. Santana is sitting on a wooden stool next to Dani, looking nervous.

“I have a song that I’ve been working on with my beautiful girlfriend,” Dani announces into the mic and the crowd cheers loudly.

Rachel’s stomach sinks. Both she and Santana were kicked out of the band over their fight, yet Santana is on stage ready to perform like she never left the group in the first place.

Rachel misses most of the song, though it’s acoustic and it’s an original composition of Dani’s that Rachel vaguely remembers hearing her strum on occasion when Rachel was still living at the loft. Santana is holding the other mic and Kurt and Elliott hang on the back of the stage, giving the girls their moment. 

Santana is looking at Dani the entire time. She hardly even glances out at the crowd as she harmonizes with Dani. 

Rachel slips off of her stool, leaving her barely touched wine on the table and heads for the door, the tears stinging at the corner of her eyes. She makes it outside onto the sidewalk, but the cool evening air doesn’t make it any easier to breathe. 

She’s the outsider.

Santana gets fucking everything: the apartment, their friends, Funny Girl, and the band.

New York was supposed to be Rachel’s; it was supposed to be different.

She manages to hold back the tears until she locks herself into Elliott’s apartment - she’s been here for weeks but she still doesn’t consider it hers at all. That fact just makes her cry harder and she can feel her mascara running in ugly, black streaks down her cheeks.

It’s too late to bother her fathers; they’ve been asleep for hours at this point. She forces herself to change into pajamas and she collapses onto the bed without bothering to wash her face or brush her teeth. She hugs her knees to her chest and holds them there, her body shaking with the force of her sobs.

This pain in her chest has become so familiar, like it has found a home there and doesn’t plan on leaving. That fact alone makes her angry because she knows she’s a prisoner to this feeling, that she can’t escape this constant spiral of grief when she has to keep seeing Santana every day.

~!~!~!~

Rachel can’t remember the last time she did something that wasn’t recorded on a calendar. Her phone buzzes at all hours with updates to that calendar and she follows the schedule that everybody else lays out for her day after day. Sometimes she likes the crazy routine, running from rehearsals to meet with her team to prep for an interview. Having someone else running her life makes it easy to lose herself in the comfort of routine, and that gives her less time to focus on the fact that if she had free time, she would have nobody to spend it with anyway. 

Rehearsals are still taking up the bulk of her time, with the opening of the show creeping up on them so fast. However, even outside of rehearsal time, she still ends up being with Santana more often than not. Rupert loves the press the show has been getting from charming little Rachel Berry and sassy Santana Lopez. Together, they’re a dream team, despite the fact that these interviews really just show how great they are as actresses. They act like best friends, they joke around and play off of one another. But as soon as the camera or recorder disappears, they go back to radio silence, splitting their separate ways as quickly as possible.

To be honest, Rachel has learned to like the interviews she does with Santana way more than the ones that she does with other members of the cast. Paolo flirts with any women in the area and relies on his reputation in the industry to carry him through public appearances without putting any real effort into selling the show. Santana, on the other hand, is so natural at making people fall in love with her that it ends up helping Rachel reputation too. They’re a united front when it comes to interviews, even if that’s the only time that they tolerate one another’s presence these days.

It isn’t the most exciting thing, but being fake with Santana is still a step up from the tension-filled silences that surround them the rest of the time. Sometimes she can forget that they hate one another in those moments as interviewers question them and inquire about how they ended up on the same Broadway stage after leaving the same tiny midwestern town. It’s a process they have down pat, each of them interjecting with slightly new stories to give different magazines and blogs a fresh perspective on their so-called spectacular friendship. 

But it’s also exhausting, pretending like it doesn’t bother her that Santana takes up fifty percent of her interview time, even though she’s nothing but an understudy. It’s all that Rachel can do to remind herself that once the curtain opens on the show, Santana will be sitting in a back dressing room with nothing to do but pray that Rachel sprains her ankle so that she can show her face on stage.

Santana’s POV

When Santana auditioned for Funny Girl, she had no real understanding what kind of commitment it would be. But she’s here, unwilling to quit or back down because that would be like admitting defeat to Rachel Berry. She also never figured as the understudy that she would need to make so many public appearances. To the actual production, she’s barely more than a nobody choir member. Unless Rachel miraculously eats something she’s allergic to and stops breathing, there’s no chance in hell that Santana will actually get to perform as Fanny in the show’s entire run.

Instead, she’s hardly even getting paid to be in rehearsals for easily ten hours a day. There’s a small bonus for interviews, thrown to her by Rupert who was desperate to broadcast the fairytale story of she and Rachel’s climb to Broadway fame. Still, it wasn’t enough to pay the bills, and she had to pick up diner shifts in any free time she had. To be honest, she can’t remember the last time she got more than three hours of sleep, since the only diner shift that really fit into her schedule was 11pm to 5am.

The place was open 24 hours these days, but Santana’s shift was usually incredibly slow. The tips were meager at best, but she was guaranteed a hot meal that she didn’t have to cook and an unlimited supply of coffee to get through it.

There was no break and she was beyond the point of exhaustion.

Somehow, though, Rachel still managed to be perky and looking well rested every single morning. Santana knew she had quit working at the diner - her paycheck from Funny Girl was definitely a lot nicer than Santana’s, plus her fathers helped her out - but she knew that Rachel also stayed late at rehearsals to practice a million more times than was necessary. Everybody already knew that her performance on opening night was going to be impeccable.

It irked Santana how Rachel managed to keep it all together. Even at early rehearsals, Rachel was always freshly showered, undoubtedly after a good workout on her elliptical. The rest of them chugged coffee in the wings until they were torn away from their warm ups by Rupert’s booming call. It always made Santana scowl and she’d Rachel’s eyes might look a little red, but in general, she always somehow came off as annoyingly optimistic as she was in their sophomore year of high school. Nothing in this world could beat Rachel down when she had a goal in sight.

Rachel was the star pupil, always the first one standing in the middle of the stage awaiting directions. Santana knew the girls in the choir mostly disliked their enthusiastic star. She would laugh with them over lunch about it, but in truth, she knew most of it was because most of them were at least five years older than Rachel and herself, yet they were left to sway behind her night after night. Santana could relate to that. She had already done it for the past three years. It was easy to hate Rachel, but the truth was that nobody could actually hate Rachel, because even when she would act like a diva, there was always the underlying truth that Rachel just cared so much about the people around her that she wanted it to go well for everyone. 

Rachel would be the first presenting a thank you card if Sydney, one of the choir members, managed to get into a ballet company like she wanted. She lent people her Icy Hot when she saw them rubbing a sore muscle after a particularly long dance rehearsal. If she was running to Starbucks on a break, she never hesitated to offer to bring orders back, even though nobody ever volunteered to go with her and help.

Rachel was better than all of them in more ways than Santana could even imagine.

She rarely defended Rachel to the other girls - it’s not like Rachel was her friend anymore these days anyway - but Santana still felt a weird twinge of guilt every time she would think about their nasty comments later as she sat filling ketchup bottles or under the hot spray of her shower as she washed off the residual diner grease before another long day at the theatre. 

It was weird to feel guilty about others disliking Rachel when she had spent so much time torturing the girl, which was way worse than anything they were doing. But she knew Rachel now and she saw how her eyes would blink rapidly to keep the tears away when she caught them all giggling behind her back. Rachel might have it all together, but she was still miraculously human.

And it makes Santana feel like shit.

~!~!~!~

Santana doesn’t even bother going to sleep on Thursday after her diner shift runs late. Rehearsal starts at 7am on Friday morning so that Rachel and Paolo can have time to get ready for some big schmoozing event all afternoon. The coffee already is making her feel jittery - it’s at least her eighth cup in the past 12 hours - but she sips it as she heads for the theatre, the sky still painted in hazy darkness.

She walks by Rachel’s dressing room as she heads for the slums that she shares with pretty much the rest of the cast. The door is closed, but Santana can see that it’s still dark inside, meaning she actually beat Rachel here for once. It’s a first - Rachel is usually at least an hour early for rehearsals so that she can warm up properly - and Santana is tempted to sleep on the plush couch in Rachel’s dressing room for a while before people start showing up.

She bypasses the temptation, deciding that her head hurts too much to win a stupid battle with Rachel this morning and heads for her own little cubby to change out of her diner uniform into something more comfortable for rehearsal. She smells like fryer grease and she feels dirty, even in fresh clothes, but she had no choice. There was no way to find time to head all the way back to the loft in order to take a shower before rehearsal. She lathers up in an extra layer of deodorant and runs her fingers through her hair, which feels stringy and flat against her hand.

The other girls filter through a little while later and give her a nod of acknowledgement as they yawn into their own cups of coffee. Santana gives them half-hearted hellos as she laces up her sneakers and trudges out towards the stage.

Rachel is still missing ten minutes before rehearsal and Santana considers texting her to see where she is, before figuring that it’ll just make Rachel angry at her for some reason that Santana won’t understand.

Five minutes before seven, Rupert shows up with his clipboard full of notes and is too absorbed by them to realize that Rachel isn’t pacing around the middle of the stage as she waits for everybody else to be ready.

By the time Rupert finally calls out the scene that they’re starting with, Rachel comes running down the aisle from the front of the theatre, her hair still dripping from an obviously rushed shower.

Rupert glances up at her, looking mildly amused at seeing his normally poised star looking disheveled. Rachel starts spewing apologies like she was holding everybody else, even though rehearsal hadn’t actually gotten rolling yet. She tugs at her sweatshirt that is hanging off her right shoulder, looking uncomfortable at the chorus of rolling eyes that accompany her apologies.

She drops her bag and cell phone on a seat in the front row and bounds up the stairs on the side of the stage to join the rest of them. Santana almost feels bad for her; she figures Rachel actually managed to oversleep for once in her life, probably due to the crazy PR schedule her team and Rupert have her running on these days.

Santana can barely listen to Rupert with how exhausted she is from her all-nighter, but for some reason, she’s had a keen eye on Rachel all day. The girl is dragging in a way that Santana hasn’t experienced since Rachel got the flu and still tried to come to school. 

It’s unsurprising when Rachel misses her cue for the third time and bumps into Santana, who is practicing the same moves next to her. Santana knows she was a half-beat off, but Rachel turned in the completely wrong direction altogether.

“Why are you so damn close to me? How the hell am I going to get this down if you can’t even keep your clumsy feet away from me?”

Rachel is lashing out, but Santana still doesn’t take well to having the blame put on her. She can feel the stares from the other girls on the two of them, waiting to see how Santana is going to respond.

“Seriously? You’ve been moving like a broken robot all morning and you really want me to believe it’s my fault that you don’t know your left from your right?”

Santana crosses her arms over her chest and exhales in a huff, hoping Rachel will just drop it and move on.

Alas, an exhausted Rachel Berry also tends to be an unreasonable Rachel Berry.

Rachel is in her face, though Santana isn’t catching a single word of Rachel’s crazy diva rant. She digs her fingernails into her own biceps to keep herself from slapping Rachel. This job may be sucking up all her time while paying her next to nothing, but it’s a gig that could lead to better opportunities. She’s not about to let cranky Rachel ruin it for her.

“ENOUGH!”

Santana whips her head around to see Rupert storming up to the stage from his normal seat. He looks furious. Rupert wasn’t exactly the most positive person Santana had ever met, but he never had lost it in a rehearsal before.

“Here we go,” Paolo mumbles next to Santana and he stalks off to the left wing to grab his water bottle while Rupert stomps up the stairs until he halts in front of her and Rachel.

Santana misses most of Rupert’s rant because she’s too focused on how everybody else seems to be shrinking away from them. However, Rachel stands tall and stares Rupert directly in the eyes the entire time. Santana feels instantly teleported to McKinley’s choir room with Rachel feuding with Mr. Schuester’s latest decision meant to ruin her life. 

“It’s not my fault that my understudy is incompetent and lazy!” Rachel shrills, shooting Santana daggers.

“Excuse me?” Santana responds darkly, an urge to laugh scratches in her throat at Rachel’s absurdity.

“I’m not dealing with petty high school bullshit,” Rupert informs them, looking pointedly from Santana to Rachel. “Go spend the day together, paint one another’s nails, see a therapist. I don’t fucking care what you do. But you’ll be here at 6 tomorrow morning ready to act like professionals instead of coddled, spoiled brats.”

Santana wants to protest that she didn’t even do anything, but Rupert is already bright red with rage and she needs this gig. So when Rachel stomps off the stage, Santana feels no choice but to follow her. She grabs her cell phone and coffee from the wing as they pass, the crowd parting to let them through like Rachel’s attitude is contagious. She can already hear the twittering of people talking about the exchange behind her, but she’s too annoyed at Rachel to care.

It’s barely the normal commuting hour, but midtown is swamped with tourists and business people alike as Santana follows Rachel out onto the street. She stays a few paces behind Rachel as she weaves between a foreign tour group to get to the stairs to the subway.

The platform is moderately crowded and Santana wedges herself between Rachel and a woman in an ill-fitting, hideous red suit and clunky black heels. She chooses to let her shoulder press against the polyester of the woman’s blazer instead of Rachel; a little physical space is probably one way to keep Rachel from going completely berserk right here on the platform.

Some guy comes up behind Santana and tries to shove past her, forcing Santana to abandon her intentions to avoid touching Rachel.

She can see the explosion building when her shoulder jostles against Rachel as she tries to steady her balance, scowling at the rude asshole the whole time. New York might be full of people just like her, but that doesn’t mean she needs to like it.

“What is your PROBLEM?!” Rachel seethes, her knuckles turning white as she suffocates the strap of her bag with her clenched fingers.

The train pulls up to the platform and Santana lets the people around her push past to board. She can’t see Rachel over the heads of the commuters and she doesn’t bother getting into the already packed car - she’ll just wait for the next one where she won’t end up elbow-to-elbow with Rachel.

The doors close and it’s not until she turns away from the tracks that she notices Rachel slumped on the wooden bench along the wall, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Against her better judgment, Santana plops down on the seat next to Rachel, a sigh pushing past her lips.

“What’s the deal, Rach? You’re acting like a complete lunatic.”

The comment causes Rachel to scoff, which is quickly followed by a hiccup from her silent sobbing. Santana doesn’t understand anything about this morning’s events, and she’s mad as hell at Rachel for getting them both thrown out of rehearsal. If this were Quinn, she would have already slapped some sense into the girl, but Rachel has always required handling with kid gloves.

She avoids physical contact after seeing how Rachel has reacted to accidentally being bumped twice already today. So instead, she sits quietly and picks at her chipping nail polish, knowing that eventually Rachel will give into her desire to talk about it.

It takes longer than usual; two more trains come and go before Rachel stops sniffling. Santana continues to wait, even though she’s stuck sitting on filthy bench surrounded by the muggy, stale air of the subway platform. She’s beyond exhausted after work last night and wants to catch up on her sleep. But she waits for Rachel to speak, her head heavy on her shoulders.

“You’re single-handedly ruining my career before it’s even off the ground.”

It’s enough to make Santana want to punch something, namely Rachel’s beak of a nose, but she manages to breathe in slowly through her nose and holds the air in her lungs as she waits for Rachel to continue.

“I can’t have a bad reputation following me around in this cutthroat industry. It’s bad enough that I have to pretend to be friends with you for the sake of my public persona, but now I have your old jealousy issues threatening to destroy my credibility as well.”

“How is it my fault that you lost your shit after you mess up choreography that we’ve practiced for weeks?”

“I don’t know what you’re implying, Santana.”

“Maybe I’m not your problem. You’ve always been your own worst enemy, Berry.”

Another train pulls up to the platform, and this time Santana gets on it, leaving Rachel sitting alone in the station.

~!~!~!~

The incessant beeping of her phone alarm is unwelcome, even after six solid hours of sleep. Santana groans and pushes the blanket off of her, forcing herself out of the warmth of her bed before she falls asleep again. It’s already starting to get dark outside, but her shift at the diner starts in a little over an hour.

Kurt is sitting at the table eating something that looks like quiche but smells like rabbit food, his tie loosened at the collar after a long day at his internship. Santana pours herself a bowl of Lucky Charms and sits down next to him, nose wrinkling at the smell of whatever it is he’s eating.

“It’s from the new diet that we’re publishing an article about. Isabella is insisting that we all try it out for the week to show active promotion of the company’s beliefs,” Kurt explains as he pushes around some sprouts on his plate. “Why are you home from rehearsal so early?”

“That bitch Berry got us tossed from rehearsal this morning,” Santana grumbles, a scowl permeating her features at the reminder.

“It’s not appropriate to go all ‘Lima Heights’ on people in front of a Broadway director,” Kurt chastises, grimacing as he takes another bite of his rabbit food.

“Why do you automatically assume that it’s my fault?” Santana spits back, her annoyance bubbling to the surface again. “Rachel is the one who showed up late, messed up very basic choreography, and then went ape shit on me in order to cover up her own mistakes.”

Kurt sighs and drops his fork onto his plate and pushing it away from him.

“I know better than anyone that Rachel can be an insufferable diva sometimes, but I know that she’s under a ton of pressure with opening day looming and Broadway is her actual career.”

“What are you trying to hint at, Kurt?”

“Nothing,” he defends. “I just know that Rachel has prepared for this role for her entire life.”

“So just because I wasn’t singing show tunes in the womb means that Broadway can’t be my actual career path?”

She’s fully on the defensive now. Kurt has always been Rachel’s best friend; Santana had known it was only a matter of time before he took Rachel’s side in this feud.

“Santana, that’s not what I meant.”

“Rachel acts like a spoiled little brat repeatedly, and everybody always just writes it off as ambition. If you want to let her walk all over you, that’s your decision. But Funny Girl is helping jumpstart my career too and I’m working damn hard for it, so don’t act like she deserves this role just because she wished on a shooting star for it.”

She tosses her bowl - soggy, uneaten cereal and all - into the sink and storms out of the kitchen. Her diner uniform is in a crumpled heap next to the bed and she yanks it on anyway, not even attempting to smooth out the creased wrinkles before she’s heading out the door.

The diner is unusually busy for the late dinner rush, but it’s a welcome distraction from thinking about the day’s events. Despite her mood, she manages to be friendly to the annoying tourists and sleazy men - waiting tables is really just acting practice, she’s found - and that friendliness earns her a nice pile of tips by her shift’s end at daybreak.

She treats herself to a latte from Starbucks on her way to the subway station with the wad of cash she earned. The afternoon nap did wonders for her building exhaustion, and for once Santana has it in her to enjoy how peaceful New York can be in the early morning hours.

Rehearsal isn’t for a few hours still, but she figures she can make up for yesterday’s lost rehearsal time before everybody else shows up.

It’s the second day in a row that she’s the first person to arrive. Fuck Kurt if he doesn’t think she’s as committed to this show as Rachel is. Hell, she doesn’t even get paid half of Rachel’s salary, and there’s a 99% chance that she’ll never actually get to perform for an audience.

Somehow, it’s still worth it when she looks out from the stage at the hundreds of empty, velvet seats. Sure, in high school she never pictured herself in this setting. Her dreams always involved huge concert venues and much sluttier costumes with tons of hot women dancing around her.

So what if this was Rachel’s dream first? That doesn’t mean that it can’t be hers too.

She sticks her ear buds in and presses play on her iPhone until the opening chords of the number start pounding through her. Her feet take over and she moves through the choreography, counting the beats in her head like Brittany had trained her to do in glee club rehearsal.

She is Fanny Brice, if only for a moment on that empty stage with nobody watching. She transforms through her movements in a way that is exhilarating. Nobody can take this away from her. She’s an understudy to a girl that has overshadowed her every single day since she joined glee club four years ago. Rachel might get all of the glory, but Santana can feel that this role is just the beginning for her.

Her bones ache with want for her name in lights on the marquee, her heart twists with desire for a role that feels like it was written for her. Deep down, she’s that scared little girl who would sit on her abuela’s floor in the tiny Lima Heights Adjacent apartment and listen to stories about life in Mexico, how her abuela’s parents came to America so that their children could have a better life.

Her father was a doctor and made her abuela proud every day. Her aunt settled down with a wealthy lawyer and had a family of rowdy boys. Santana was the only granddaughter, the one child that her abuela always put all of her hopes and dreams into. 

She had already let her abuela down in a way that she could never make up for.

But on a stage, under the bright lights of Broadway, she can feel her abuela’s warm embrace after her elementary school dance recital. She can taste the celebratory ice cream they shared when she made the Cheerios as a freshman. And even if her abuela never forgives her and never comes to see her perform, Santana knows that her abuela will never stop caring that her granddaughter is following her dreams at all costs.

Santana is out of breath by the time she notices that others have started to show up for rehearsal and she wipes her sweaty brow with the hem of her t-shirt before joining her friends where they are drinking their coffee. They’re all huddled around someone’s phone, giggling and passing it around so everybody can get a better look.

“What’s so funny?” Santana asks them, leaning over one of the girl’s shoulder to try and catch a glimpse.

“You’ve got to see this,” Bailey sniggers, handing the phone over to Santana.

Santana nearly drops the phone when she sees the headline.

James Franco slums with another young Broadway hopeful

There’s a picture of Franco wrapped around a petite brunette with unmistakable features situated below the headline. Rachel Berry is on the front page of Perez Hilton’s blog, looking sloppy and drunk, her hand tucked playfully into the back pocket of James Franco’s designer jeans.


	4. Chapter 4

Santana’s POV

There’s no way in hell Santana can let Rachel catch a whiff of this. She thrusts the phone back into Bailey’s hand, and presses her fingers into the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off an impending headache.

“None of you say a word about that around Berry, do you understand?” The girls chuckle and roll their eyes at Santana. They think Santana is one of them - a member of the ‘Rachel Berry is an uptight diva club’. “I swear to fucking God, one wisecrack and I will go Lima Heights on your asses.”

The girls glance at one another, unsure what to make of Santana’s minor outburst. However, she knows she pulls more weight around here with having gone to high school with the show’s star and appearing in print alongside Rachel on a pretty regular basis. They go back to sipping their coffee, squeezing Santana out of their little circle. She’s fine with it and stomps to the edge of the stage, sitting down and dangling her feet over the pit.

It was one thing to laugh at all the mean things Jew Fro wrote about their classmates in high school. His blog was meaningless gossip that most people didn’t take seriously in the first place. Through, retrospectively, that’s probably exactly how Perez Hilton got his start in the business. There’s nothing funny about what Perez wrote about Rachel, even if she did look pretty wasted and was hanging on the arm of a celebrity who was twice her age. Rachel isn’t careless, and Santana doesn’t know what could’ve possibly led to this scenario.

It’s the only thing she can think about through the day’s rehearsal. She goes through the motions, but she’s too busy watching Rachel out of the corner of her eye to really focus on getting better.

As soon as they’re out for the day, she sends frantic messages to Kurt, Dani, and Elliott to let them know about the article. If they’re going to keep this away from Rachel, they need to work as a team. She calls in sick to the diner for the first time in months. Dani covers for her and she’s forever grateful to her girlfriend, especially because she’s hardly made time for Dani in weeks.

Back at the loft, she allows herself to Google Rachel’s name. All of the most recent results stem from the Perez Hilton article; other gossip sites have picked up the story and are displaying the same unflattering pictures. As much as she’s actively despised the way that Rachel has been acting over the passing weeks, her insides twist uncomfortably at the scandal that is sure to build from this incident.

She opens a beer and plops on the couch, scrolling through the Google results without actually clicking on the links. She has no interest in helping their viewer counts of spreading these kinds of vicious rumors.

Kurt looks beat when he gets home from work. Santana moves over on the couch as he collapses next to her, popping the top couple of buttons open on his shirt.

“Rachel called. Her management team was staging an emergency meeting and she didn’t know why. I told her to stop by when she finishes with them.”

That explains the bag of groceries at his feet - they normally go grocery shopping together after her Sunday brunch shift. Upon closer inspection, she sees a pint of Rachel’s favorite vegan ice cream, among other junk food.

“And you weren’t expecting me to be home,” Santana adds.

“It is a little surprising. You’re always at work,” Kurt admits. He stands up to put the ice cream away before it melts.

“I needed a night off. Dani is covering for me. I can go crash at her place if Rachel is coming over though.” The last thing Santana really wants is to drag her ass back into Manhattan tonight, but Rachel is probably having a rough enough night without having to walk on eggshells around her.

Kurt shrugs at her before turning away to start making himself dinner. He’s over the fighting, but Santana knows that he’s not going to dig into her tonight about making up with Rachel. 

Truthfully, she misses the fuck out of having Rachel around the loft. Lima always meant having Brittany and Quinn attached to her hips. Dani is great, and Santana thinks that she could really love her, but she misses having friendships with people that understand everything she’s been through. As much as everybody always believed Rachel to be high maintenance in high school, in reality she’s about a million times easier to live with than Kurt is. Sure, they squabbled, especially over what to watch on Netflix or where to order dinner in from, but at the end of the day, Rachel would let Santana rest her head on her shoulder and let her just be herself, claws tucked away.

Since Kurt doesn’t agree that she should leave, Santana takes that as an excuse to stay at the loft. She figures that she can duck behind her curtain and stay there while Rachel is here, avoiding confrontation.

There’s a timid knock on the door an hour later, and Santana shuts off the TV as she heads towards her bedroom before Kurt can even make a move to answer it. It probably would have been easier to just go stay at Dani’s instead of hiding in her own apartment, but she yanks the curtain closed and opens up her laptop to continue watching her marathon of The Vampire Diaries in private.

Rachel’s sniffles are unmistakable, even from across the room. Santana hears Kurt shuffling around, probably making tea and pulling out all of Rachel’s comfort foods as he assesses the situation. The urge to go comfort Rachel courses through her, feud be damned. She read the horrible low-blow remarks that that awful gossip king Perez wrote about Rachel, and she has no doubt that Rachel’s PR team made her live through every damn comment that the readers posted in response.

Netflix remains paused on her screen as she lounges back against her pillows, straining to hear Kurt’s soft, coddling comments over the rustle of them unwrapping the various snacks.

“Kenzie has been harping on me needing to let loose a bit at events,” Rachel tells Kurt. “I’ve been observed as uptight and cold because I rarely drink and stay away from more well-known people at these benefits. Apparently nobody seems to care that I’m underage and shouldn’t be at events where they aren’t checking ID before handing out champagne flutes.”

Santana can hear the pure exhaustion in Rachel’s words. She’s living in a world where nobody is pleased with what she’s doing. Granted, getting so drunk and leaving with a pretty obvious celebrity probably was swinging the pendulum a little too far in the opposite direction of the way she’s been living thus far.

“You should be loosening up, Rachel. You’re an up-and-coming star who is getting invites to some really coveted social engagements. But getting drunk like you’re at a high school keg party probably wasn’t your best decision.”

She has to hand it to Kurt, he’s a straight shooter. There’s no point in acting like Rachel didn’t make a huge fucking mistake leaving with that toolbag after getting shitfaced in a room of really important people.

As if on cue, Rachel’s waterworks turn on full force. Santana can’t make out what she’s saying through the sobbing, though it feels like she’s intruding on a really private moment between two best friends. It wasn’t that long ago that she was the one Rachel would come to when she was upset. They sat on that couch, Rachel in her arms as Santana tried to calm her down over the pregnancy test. 

She plugs her headphones in the jack and presses play on her computer, drowning it out. It’s better than eavesdropping on a conversation that she’s not welcome to be a part of, even if she’s the one that can tell Rachel that she’s not a cold, frigid bitch and that her PR team are just a bunch of cranky hardasses. The truth is that interviewers love Rachel and her naive enthusiasm, they love the way that she never fails to remember where she came from or how all of those random people from a tiny Midwest town helped her get her start. Santana might spice up the conversation, but it’s Rachel that always manages to say the perfectly right things to make them swoon over them as a pair. Rachel sells their act every damn time.

The show plays on in front of her on the screen, but Santana isn’t actually paying attention. She stares at the laptop screen, willing herself to stay hidden behind her curtain until Rachel finally leaves for the night. There are so many things she could say, some blunt and some nurturing, to Rachel. But they’re not friends anymore; Rachel has made that abundantly clear since she moved out. So as much as it physically pains her to stay sprawled out on her bed, she does so, hiding away behind the curtain where Rachel doesn’t know that she exists.

Eventually the need to pee trumps the desire to avoid letting Rachel know that she’s home. Santana slips around the edge of her curtain and makes a beeline for the bathroom, walking through the kitchen to avoid where Kurt and Rachel are sitting on the couch.

“They talked to Rupert and they all agreed that it’s a good time for me to take a bit of a mental break, so they’re sending me to L.A. to work on recording for the revival soundtrack. I leave tomorrow morning apparently. It’s still weird to have someone else booking my plane ticket and telling me what I’m doing all of the time.”

“That might not be a bad thing,” Santana mutters under her breath, though not loud enough for Rachel and Kurt to hear her. She closes herself in the bathroom and snaps the lock into place. Kurt leaves his magazines in a little rack, so she gets absorbed in some ridiculous quiz about skin care and doesn’t realize how long she’s been in there until she hears the loft door slide closed.

She emerges sheepishly, but Kurt has already pulled out his laptop and is groaning at his work email, ignoring her presence altogether.

“How’d it go?” she asks, moving his briefcase aside so that she can fit on the couch.

“Don’t you think gossiping about gossip involving one of our close friends is at least marginally tactless?” he questions, not bothering to look away from the screen.

Santana shrugs. He’s right, but she’s still kind of hoping that he got the inside scoop on what went down. All of it just seems so far removed from the Rachel she’s known for years that she can’t help but wonder what the real story is.

It’s obvious that Kurt isn’t going to crack and give her the details she wants, so she retires to her room again, restarting her episode and settling in for a marathon alone.

Rachel’s POV

Rachel has never been to Los Angeles. Part of her feels like everybody thinks this is some American dream: to be sent to L.A. to lay down some tracks in a fancy music studio with executives standing around in designer suits. It’s one that she let herself wonder about on occasion, but it never seemed to fit into her life plan quite right. 

It’s only mid-March, but L.A. is warm and sunny and every single person she passes seems to own an expensive pair of sunglasses. Of course, she forgot to pack her own when she was throwing clothes haphazardly in her bag this morning before the car picked her up. Her team put her on a flight that took off when the sun was just starting to rise - apparently it’s less likely that she’ll catch anybody’s attention if she travels when the rest of the world is asleep - so she wasn’t really thinking clearly about the differences in weather on the west coast. She’s sweaty in her long-sleeved blouse, but the driver cranks up the air conditioning and avoids small talk, so she’s not completely miserable by the time she’s being dropped off in front of the building.

She’s early - punctuality is something that her dads always took very seriously and she’s always followed in their footsteps that way - and she’s forced to lug her suitcase into the elevator with her since she didn’t even know where Kenzie had booked for her to stay. To be honest, the last thing she really wants right now is three days tucked away in a hotel in a city that is completely foreign to her.

I’m in LA for a few days. I thought maybe you would like to spend some time together.

There’s only one person she knows that lives in this land: Mercedes. Rachel could definitely use a friend right now that’s removed from the drama between her and Santana.

She knows to not expect a response right away - it’s still really early in the morning - but she can’t help but check her phone kind of obsessively until they call her into the booth to start recording.

When they break for lunch, she finally has a message back from Mercedes.

Girlllll, of course I wanna see you. Where are you staying? My couch is pretty damn cozy if you need a place to crash.

It’s an incredibly generous offer, and it only takes a moment of biting on her lip to decide that sleeping on a lumpy couch in Mercedes’s tiny apartment has got to be a million times better than drowning in her own loneliness in a nondescript hotel room. Rachel calls Kenzie to have her cancel her reservation and responds to Mercedes that she’d love to stay there. It makes eating a salad alone in a little café down the block from the studio at lunch a little more bearable knowing that she’ll get to see a familiar face later.

Somehow, it’s relaxing to sing without the need for theatrics. Being in the studio reminds her of singing in her bedroom, feeling every note and not worrying about anything else but the music. There’s no auditorium filled with people looking for a show, no choreography or the necessity of meaningful looks. All she hears is the instrumental track coming through her headphones and she belts into the big, professional microphone with zero abandon. She’s never done anything like this, yet somehow it feels like coming home.

When the execs finally release her for the day, she texts Mercedes, who sends her the address of her apartment. The company has a car waiting for her and she gives the driver Mercedes’s address, feeling light as she does so. Rachel misses her friend - Mercedes is one of the few real ones that Rachel feels like she has - and she’s excited to get to spend some time with her, even if it means driving past the nice hotel in favor of a more rundown neighborhood.

Mercedes buzzes her in and she drags her suitcase through the doors and onto the elevator. When she gets to the fifth floor, Mercedes is standing in the doorway of her apartment and waves gleefully to her. Rachel cracks a big smile and walks towards her friend, so glad that she chose to do this instead of staying at the hotel.

The apartment itself is quaint - that’s really the best way to describe it. Mercedes leads her past a cramped, but bright, kitchen and down a narrow hallway. It opens up into a living area that has shelves of cds and tons of colorful canvas paintings hanging jauntily from nails in the wall. It’s homey with its worn furniture and Rachel loves how much it reminds her of what she imagined for the loft when she and Kurt first signed the lease.

“My bedroom is tiny, but it’s a cool place,” Mercedes tells her with a little smile. “My roommate is an artist, in case you couldn’t tell.” She gestures at the dozens of paintings tacked up all over the place.

“I love it,” Rachel genuinely replies, dropping her suitcase next to the end table and sitting down on the end of the couch.

“What brings you out here?” Mercedes asks, casually scrutinizing the bags under Rachel’s eyes and her casual appearance.

“My reps figured this would be a good time to start laying down the album for the revival. I don’t know how they can possibly believe that it will sell as well as the original cast recording, but it’s part of my contract for the show.” She deliberately omits the fact that the timing happened as a means of keeping her from further screwing up her public persona. The memory of those pictures from Perez Hilton’s site are burned into her memory and her throat runs dry at recalling the feel of him pressed against her side as he coaxed her into a cab.

Mercedes doesn’t ask any more questions, but she fills Rachel in on her own budding career and tells her about life in L.A. It’s hard to not feel jealous when it seems like Mercedes is happy with the way her plans are working out. Broadway was supposed to make Rachel feel that way.

Tonight isn’t about drowning herself in self-pity. She’s out of New York, away from all of the drama with Santana and the show. She tries to absorb Mercedes’ pure happiness, which isn’t difficult considering how much it seems to be radiating from her. She lets herself laugh at anecdotes and shares how things went in the studio this morning as they get ready side by side squished together in front of Mercedes’s vanity mirror in her cramped bedroom.

Mercedes takes her a little Italian restaurant that’s out of the bustle of the city, and Rachel is immediately grateful for the calm atmosphere. It’s nice to be able to feel like a teenager again, giggling after the waiter accepts their fake IDs and brings them glasses of wine. There’s no worry of someone snapping a picture of her drinking with her friend; out here, she’s a nobody. It’s amazing to be able to blend in with the surroundings again.

Dinner is amazing, and by the time they’re paying the check, Rachel feels more relaxed than she’s felt since the casting calls for her understudy. She hasn’t so much as glanced at her phone - her team is probably having a panic attack about her ignoring them - and it’s liberating to just live in the moment for once.

She’s not really in the mood for a big night on the town and they both need to work in the morning, so she’s happy when Mercedes suggests grabbing a bottle of wine and heading back to her apartment to hang out.

Rachel is greeted by the sound of laughter emanating from the apartment when Mercedes unlocks the door. The small living room is crowded with three girls that Rachel vaguely recognizes from pictures on Mercedes’ Facebook page. 

The next few minutes are a whirlwind of introductions, but she’s glad when Mercedes introduces her as a friend from home, leaving out the tidbit of her impending career. Rachel smiles and greets each person warmly, internally grateful for her old friend’s understanding that she doesn’t want to be subjected to an onslaught of questions tonight. The girl on the far end of the couch with beautiful hazelnut eyes - Rachel thinks she introduced herself as Andrea, but the names are already starting to fade from her memory - eyes her curiously, like she may recognize Rachel from somewhere. Thankfully she doesn’t pursue whatever her thoughts are, leaving Rachel to blend in with the group.

Since moving out of the loft and signing with a representative team, she’s hardly had a chance to act nineteen. Theater hours are long and antisocial by nature. On weekends, her schedule is jammed full of appearances and parties where every attendee is five years her major. There’s none of this atmosphere: a group of young adults drinking cheap wine on a thrift store couch, swapping horror stories about their customer service jobs and talking about dating. She’s not even sure the last time she even thought about going on a date, never mind having someone interested enough in her to ask her on one.

“Can I interest you in some wine? The house special is a $3 bottle of pinot grigio from the only liquor store in the area that doesn’t card.” Mercedes’s roommate, Ani, stands in front of Rachel holding the bottle of wine and gives her a playful grin. “California’s best product, I assure you,” Ani adds.

Rachel laughs, and it’s heartfelt. She likes these girls and their simplicity. Ani twists the screw top of the bottle and pours some into a plastic margarita glass with flamingos printed on it.

“It’s so nice of you to use the fine china on our special guest,” Mercedes plays along, a giggle following it as she reaches for the glass Ani is now offering her.

“I’m a true Southern hostess. My debutante obsessed mother would have it no other way.”

“Where the fuck were those manners when we were roommates?” one of the other girls - Rachel forgets her name - asks. This sends the whole room into a fit of giggles.

“Being a good hostess and being your personal maid are two very different things, Jemma. I ain’t here to wash your nasty dishes or unhang your damn boyfriend’s boxers from the lampshade in the living room.”

Never once does Rachel feel like an outsider, despite knowing nothing about these people. Mercedes is glowing with happiness and Rachel tries to absorb it as she slides down onto the floor beside her friend.

Conversation quickly turns to the awful customers that came into the cafe today where Ani and Jemma work. All of them are in college and spend their free hours waiting tables to have the money to enjoy living in a city like L.A. Rachel sees what life could have been if she hadn’t chosen one of the most competitive programs in the country. Nobody at NYADA wants to be anybody's friend; they only care about being better than everybody else. Every conversation was filled with backhanded compliments and ploys to extract information on what showcases the other was pursuing. Rachel learned quickly that not having friends at NYADA didn’t make you an outcast, it made you a normal theater snob.

Her stint in customer service was a rather short one, but she pipes up with her own stories about customers at the diner with their ridiculous need for gravy covered french fries while they simultaneously forced her to sing horrible songs from their nostalgic pasts.

“You seriously had to sing ‘Come On, Eileen’ to a seventy year-old couple?” Andrea asks, looking like she was about to explode with laughter. Rachel nods her assent. “That dude is some romantic. Damn, I don’t know how his wife has lasted being married to him for forty years.”

“God, I thought that working at Macy’s during the holiday season was bad, but at least they didn’t expect me to do a jig every time I rang up a customer,” Jemma adds. “I guess in a world of wannabe stage actors, a singing diner is exactly what the tourists want.”

Rachel doesn’t add that she’s no longer one of those wannabe actors. Her name is being installed on the marquee for everybody walking by the theater to see.

“Rachel has plenty of practice. She lit up stages everywhere when we were in Glee club together. Her solo at Nationals probably single handedly won us the championship,” Mercedes tells her friends. It’s never been often that Rachel has heard people genuinely compliment her talent. Mercedes was probably her biggest competitor besides Kurt when it came to being a performer.

It’s easy to throw the attention back on Mercedes; she’s the one that is in a recording studio on a regular basis, laying down tracks as a background singer for an up-and-coming pop star from Canada. She has a paycheck that is steadier than most people her age and it’s only a matter of time before she’s recording her own solo album.

Rachel likes hearing about Mercedes’s success. Her friends are obviously proud of her and are supportive. Her stomach twists at the thought that she doesn’t have people like that in her life, but she pushes it aside, focusing on Mercedes for once.

Eventually everybody starts yawning. It’s not that late, but they all have jobs and school early the next morning, so they say their goodbyes. The girls hug Rachel like they’ve known her more than a few hours and she wishes that she could stay in this town for more than a couple of days. 

Ani retreats to her bedroom, leaving her with Mercedes. Mercedes grabs spare sheets and makes up the couch for her as Rachel rummages through her suitcase for her toiletries.

“What brought you out here so suddenly?” Mercedes inquires, playing with the corner of the sheet she draped over the couch cushions.

“My team wanted me to start recording on the revival album,” Rachel replies simply, gripping her toothbrush.

“Why aren’t they having you record in New York so that you don’t have to lose out on so many rehearsal days right before opening night?” Mercedes pushes. Rachel knows how much Mercedes loves to be privy to insider gossip. 

“My producer worked in L.A. for a decade before moving to Broadway, so he has some good friends in the industry here. The man that owns the studio we’re using out here is a close friend of his.”

It’s the story that Rachel’s team fed her during their emergency meeting the other night and she has no reason to question its validity.

“So it has nothing to do with you no longer living with Kurt and Santana?”

“Why would my career obligations have anything to do with my former roommates?” Rachel retorts, fighting to keep her voice level.

“It doesn’t. Of course not,” Mercedes backtracks. “I just thought it might be messy with Santana working on the show with you as well.”

“Santana has nothing to do with my life besides dancing in the shadows of my success. We’re both professionals now. Plus, as soon as the curtain rises on opening night, I’m the only one that is going to be on stage. Santana is barely a blip on my radar these days.”

“I don’t think it bothers her that she’s not the star, Rach. It only seems to bother you.” Mercedes prods gently.

“Of course it doesn’t bother her! She hasn’t dreamed of this role for eighteen years! Broadway is what I’ve always worked for. Santana just follows the tide, doing whatever pleases her in the moment and doesn’t care who she’s sabotaging in the process.” Rachel forces a deep breath in through her nose, releasing it slowly through her mouth.

“How is she sabotaging you? You said it yourself - she’ll be sitting backstage while you are the star night after night. She just saw an opportunity to jumpstart her career, so she took it.”

“There are thousands of shows. Why did she need to go after my role?” Rachel’s voice cracks as she tries to hold it together. Mercedes stands up and disappears into the kitchen, returning with a glass of water.

Rachel accepts the glass with trembling hands and takes a sip. It’s hard to swallow at the same time as keeping her tears at bay. The lump in her throat is suffocating and the water does nothing to soothe it.

“Rach, I don’t think that this has ever been about Santana trying to take your role.” Mercedes voice is soft, nearly pitying.

A hiccup escapes her, most likely a product of the wine and her ragged breathing. Mercedes hand finds her forearm and rests there, like somehow her presence will make the awfulness that has been trapped in her chest for weeks suddenly disintegrate.

“Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, Santana wasn’t trying to be malicious? I mean everybody knows that she can be a bitch, but she’s practically the most loyal bitch I’ve ever met.”

Rachel doesn’t answer her. She thought Santana had been her best friend. They connected in a way that she never had with anybody. Kurt was special to her, but their friendship barely dipped below surface level. They were there for one another, but she never felt the urge to spill her deepest worries to him the way she did with Santana. Maybe it was a girl bond; she had never really had one of those. Mercedes was a good friend, but they were also so different that their friendship had happened more of convenience. Santana and herself, however, were more alike than she had ever imagined before Santana had moved to New York. Once Brody was out of the picture, it wasn’t long before Rachel realized that Santana didn’t actually eat babies for breakfast.

Mercedes sighs after a bout of silence - Rachel really has no idea how long they’ve been sitting here like this - and pats Rachel’s arm once before standing up.

“Thanks,” Rachel tells her. “You know, for letting me stay here and everything. Your friends are really cool.”

Mercedes gives her a weak smile.

“Sleep tight, Rachel.”

She definitely doesn’t sleep tight. In fact, she doesn’t sleep at all.

For hours, she relives the past few months in her head, day by day. NYADA, Miss July, Brody, the Winter Showcase, Finn at the wedding. None of it was the way she had planned life after high school to go. But what would she change? Of course, now it’s just retrospectively. There’s no way to go back and convince herself that she shouldn’t be trying to marry Finn before they’ve even graduated high school. She can’t rewrite how things have played out.

But she misses the loft. She misses her friends. Broadway was supposed to be glamorous and fulfill her in a way that life in Ohio never would be capable of doing.

Instead, she’s lonely. One childish mistake of following a sweet-talking celebrity out of a party and she gets shipped out of town.

This is never what she wanted.

Since she’s awake, she tries to figure out Mercedes’s coffee machine and ends up producing something that looks more like tar. She’s rinsing it out when Mercedes wanders through, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“G’morning,” Mercedes says through a yawn. She opens the refrigerator and pulls out a carton of eggs and some milk.

“Morning,” Rachel responds, though she knows it’s lacking her normal chipper edge.

“You still vegan?”

“I try, but New York can be really expensive and it’s surprisingly hard to maintain a vegan diet when you have to go to dinner parties with fixed menus. You’d think that people would ask ahead of time for dietary needs, but it seems to get overlooked quite often. I am, however, vegetarian.”

“Well, I’m making scrambled eggs. Would you like some?” Mercedes asks her.

Rachel shakes her head and turns back to scrubbing the coffee pot.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel mumbles. She’s not even quite sure what she’s apologizing for.

“Girl, I know that things aren’t as easy as we thought they were going to be. But that’s why we need to stick together.”

Rachel knows that Mercedes is talking about Santana. They were a club, a bunch of misfits and lonely people coming together to find joy in the simplicity of performing. But more than that, they were once a family, a group that always had one another’s backs.

“She’s my understudy, but it’s obvious that everybody in the production prefers her. I have a dressing room to eat lunch alone in while she had friends and girls to gossip with and someone to split a muffin with on a break. Santana might not be the star, but she’s definitely the favorite.”

“And maybe that’s true. God knows Santana has a kind of slimy way with people and convincing them to do what she wants. I think Cheerios must get an injection of that gene or something. But Rach, you’re Fanny Brice in the biggest Broadway revival in a decade. You’re in an industry where people don’t tend to make friends, they just rub elbows. But Santana was your friend way before that even started. And it’s not too late to drop your holier than thou attitude and set things straight. But if you keep it up, it’s going to become too late.”

Rachel sucks in a breath. Her jaw is tense from clenching it so hard. Mercedes is probably right, but she’s pretty sure it’s already too late.

Her cell phone rings from the living room and she moves around Mercedes to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Berry, your car will be there in about thirty minutes to take you to the studio. Bring your bag with you, as you’ll be heading directly to the airport from your recording session. Rupert is insisting that you be at rehearsal tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, thanks.”

As usual, there’s no emotion from her team, just business. Nobody is asking how the first day in the studio went or explaining why it’s so crucial that she be back in New York for rehearsal tomorrow.

She wanders back into the kitchen, where Mercedes is now sitting at the tiny table, devouring her scrambled eggs.

“They need me back in New York tomorrow. My car is going to be here soon.”

She’s sad about leaving Mercedes’s company so early, but as usual, work dictates her schedule.

“Well I’m sure you’ll be back in L.A. shortly to finish the album,” Mercedes replies, trying to keep the mood positive.

“Thanks for letting me stay here, I needed some time with old friends.”

“Just think about what I said, Rachel. We’re all a crazy, dysfunctional family.”

She gets up and holds her arms out to Rachel. Rachel moves into the embrace, feeling a tear slip down her cheek. She swipes at it as they separate before Mercedes can notice.

“Well, I better get ready to go then.”

They hug once more before Rachel gets into the black car waiting in front of the apartment building. This time, in the safety of the back seat, she lets the tears fall silently as she watches Los Angeles zip by outside the window.

It’s not home. Right now, New York doesn’t feel like home either. But she has to make it home nonetheless. She’ll be flying into JFK airport tonight, starting this journey with a fresh perspective and maybe even with some changes.

She deserves to be happy, but only she can make that happen.


	5. Chapter 5

Being back in New York is a whirlwind. They’re merely weeks away from opening night, and Rachel spends practically every waking moment rehearsing. Her drive is stronger than she ever remembers it being as she pushes herself through choreography for hours even after everybody else has left for the night. Blisters on her feet have grown into hard callouses from dancing so much. She protects her voice, sticking with strict regimens of warm water with honey and avoiding talking more than necessary. It’s obvious that some of her colleagues think that she has absolutely lost her mind since her short stint in Los Angeles, but it’s easy to brush off their judgments knowing that she’s doing everything she can to make this production be successful.

She wouldn’t call it a revival of her love for Broadway, but she can’t deny that something about the trip has given her the energy to invest herself in the show the way she should have been doing from the beginning. This is the Rachel she used to be, back before her name was ever getting mounted outside a real theater in New York.

It helps that her team is giving her a break from events, letting her lie low as the dust continues to settle. The focus needs to be on stellar reviews for opening night, and any schmoozing at parties is simply a distraction. She’s glad that when she finally gives up on practicing, she can head home and get into her pajamas without having someone pressing fake lashes on and reminding her about her posture. 

It’s a relief to know that she won’t be running into him again. Her skin still crawls every time she thinks about that night. Parts are fuzzy - the effects of the alcohol, she guesses. 

His arm is tight around her waist, steering her out of the party. The alcohol made her giddy and he was the only one in the room paying her any mind. She gave a girlish giggle, happy that someone seemed to notice her. It was a weird game they had been playing all night, dancing around one another as they sucked down cocktails.

But then everything feels serious and he hails a cab to take her to his place right in front of the venue. She is drunk, too drunk, and he is insistent as he begins pushing his wet mouth against hers, pinning her to the back seat of the cab. She shoves at him, trying to push his weight off of her tiny body, but he just presses in harder, laughing in a low voice against her cheek. Her voice is weak, but she asks him to stop, pleads with him to get off of her.

When the car suddenly stops, they are both pushed off balance.

“Get off of her, man.”

Her view is still blocked by Franco’s head in front of her, but the voice is an unfamiliar one.

“It’s just your damn job to drive where I tell you to go.” Franco reminds the driver in a haughty tone.

“Get the fuck out of my cab.”

“Fine, but don’t think I’m giving you a cent for this shitty service.” She can tell that he’s pissed and her heart is pounding in her chest. He turns back to her, grabbing her arm as he reaches for the door handle. “Let’s go, Rachel.”

“She’s not going with you,” the cab driver says sternly and James punches the seat angrily.

“Fuck you, but this is none of your business. We’re leaving. Now.” He yanks on her arm again. She tries to pull it away from him, wanting desperately to be alone right now, far from this guy she barely knows.

“I - I think I just want to go home,” she whispers, tears springing up in her eyes.

“Are you fucking serious?” James yells, though she knows he’s not looking for an answer. He glares at her for a long moment before grabbing his blazer and pushing the door of the cab open. She holds her breath until the door slams behind him and the cab driver immediately pulls back into traffic.

She starts sobbing right there in the back of the cab, rubbing at her skin like it’s infected.

“Sweetie, it’s going to be okay. He’s scum and you’re smart for saying no.” The words hardly register, but she’s still grateful for this cab driver turned fairy godfather. “What’s your address?”

She chokes it out through the sobs to the incredibly patient driver. He turned on the next street and starts heading downtown instead, away from wherever James was taking her.

When they pull up in front of her building, she shuffles through her clutch to find some money.

“I can’t take your money, not after the night you’ve already had,” he tells her, waving her off as he shuts down the meter.

“It’s the least I can do after you saved me from something I’d regret.” Rachel tells him honestly, sniffling.

“I have two girls of my own and I’d like to think that people would look out for them if they were out in this city alone.”

“I really appreciate it. I shouldn’t have gotten so drunk in the first place.”

He sighs deeply and runs his hand over his balding head.

“Sweetie, it’s not your fault. You did the right thing when you said no. He should have respected that. Now get yourself upstairs and sleep it off. I hope tomorrow is much brighter.”

She holds out some cash, but he pushes it back into her palm.

“Look, I’m going to be to starring on Broadway in a couple of weeks. Can I at least give you my contact information so that I can get you tickets for your girls or a night out with your wife or something?”

The man chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief.

“You’re not good at accepting help, are you? If it’ll make you feel better, then give me your card. Just promise me that you’ll take care of yourself.”

She nods quietly and hands him a business card instead of the cash.

“Thank you for the ride and, uh, you know.”

He smiles at her, but his eyes are sad. She slips out of the cab and heads straight up to the apartment, wanting this night to finally be over.

~!~!~!~

“Thanks for agreeing to meet me,” Rachel says, sitting up primly in her seat. The coffee shop is crowded on Monday afternoon, but she was able to secure a table tucked in the back corner. 

Shelby sits across from her, looking too similar to her that she can only look at her face in small glimpses. A little blonde girl - Beth - sits in a booster seat and plays with the toys that Shelby set in front of her.

“Sorry that I couldn’t get a sitter on such late notice. I only try to put her in daycare when I’m working.”

“It’s no problem, really. She’s adorable,” Rachel says, taking in the little girl. She looks so much like what Rachel imagines Quinn looked like as a toddler. Her brow furrows as she manipulates the toy in front of her.

“I was surprised to hear from you after all this time,” Shelby admits. She plays nervously with the plastic lid on her coffee cup, avoiding Rachel’s eyes.

“Well, we didn’t leave things on great terms. But I’m not looking for a mom, I’m looking for a mentor and friend,” Rachel tells her. And it’s the truth; she’s grown a lot and she’s come to terms with the fact that her dads have always given her more than enough love and support. Shelby might be her biological mother, but she’s never been her mom. Rachel knows now that it’s okay that way.

Shelby looks relieved at Rachel’s admission. She takes a sip of her coffee and straightens Beth’s little headband before looking up at Rachel.

“I don’t know what use I can really be. You’re the one with your name in lights these days.”

News of Rachel’s role have obviously traveled.

“You know about Funny Girl?” Rachel asks her, a little surprised. The show is still dark and she’s a nobody in the business, even with the press her team has been getting out there.

“Do you really think that I don’t keep an eye on your career? I was a little upset to hear that you had dropped out of NYADA, but when I realized it was for such a prime role, I’ve never felt so proud.”

Rachel can’t help but blush. Her dads have saved a copy of every published article about her or the show, but she figured that nobody else cared about the trajectory of her budding career. It’s beyond flattering to hear that Shelby has been keeping it on her radar regularly too.

“I don’t think that Mr. Schue is even that invested in my career,” Rachel admits. It’s kind of sad how little she’s heard from him since she called to tell him that she got the role. He was happy for her, of course. But with his new marriage and new group of Glee kids, her career isn’t really a priority to him.

Shelby just shakes her head, but doesn’t comment. Rachel figures that Shelby has nothing nice to say about Mr. Schue, so she’s not going to say anything at all.

“What help can I really be, Rachel? At this point, I’m nothing more than a middle school choir teacher.” Rachel can hear in Shelby’s tone that she’s not proud of where her life has brought her. But she’s got a little girl to support, and a steady teaching job in a school is the best thing she could be doing.

“Those kids are lucky to have you,” Rachel reminds her. She would have killed to have a teacher like Shelby. Shelby blushes and looks away from her, fussing with unbuttoning Beth’s little sweater instead. Beth looks up at her with a toothy grin before returning her attention to her toys.

“You’re headlining a major production, Rachel. I just don’t see why you’d want anything from me. You’re getting everything you’ve always wanted.” The bitterness sits beneath the surface, but Rachel can feel it. She’s Rachel’s biological mother, even if they never had any sort of mother-daughter relationship. Rachel is getting everything that Shelby gave up to pursue her own dreams.

“It’s what I’ve always thought that I wanted,” Rachel agrees backhandedly. “I just never realized how complex it would be. My life is so torn apart because beyond the show, I’m expected to be some fresh face of Broadway. I don’t have time to see my friends or visit my dads or date. I’m just not sure that the pros really outweigh the cons.”

Shelby sighs and looks off into space, deep in thought.

“How does it feel when you’re singing ‘Who Are You Now?’ on that Broadway stage, even when the seats are empty and you’re exhausted from 10 hours of dancing?”

Rachel chuckles. “Why not ‘Don’t Rain on my Parade’?”

“I’ve already seen you perform that song and I think you’ve internalized it as a show stopper, no matter the setting. ‘Who Are You Now?’ is not the main reason that people are going to be filling those seats on opening night.”

“Singing anything on that stage makes it not matter if anybody is watching me,” Rachel admits.

“You’re not a selfish little girl anymore, Rachel. I think for a long time you craved Broadway because it meant proving to everybody that you’re so much better than them, like the torment of high school could be cast aside because you’re a star and they’re college kids at best. However, it seems like being part of a major production is reminding you that there’s so much more to this career than rubbing it in all of your past enemies’ faces.” Rachel nods her assent. “But to be successful, you need to be selfish. Nobody makes it in show business unless they make themselves their main priority.”

“So I’m just to spend the next twenty years of my prime living a life where musical theatre is the only thing in my life?” She deflates at the idea. She misses her friends desperately and the show hasn’t even opened yet.

“Of course not,” Shelby tells her. “If you do that, you’re going to end up with a life of regrets.”

“I can’t have the best of both worlds,” Rachel reminds her.

“Who says? People may be trying to run your life, but that doesn’t mean that you need to let them make every decision for you. It’s okay to be adamant about having time for yourself and working that into your schedule. Being selfish means taking time for your mental health as much as it means burying all of the competition.”

Rachel has no idea how to balance all of it. She doesn’t think her team would take kindly to her demanding time off when she feels like it. However, she gets what Shelby is telling her. Somehow, she needs to strike a balance.

“Does this have something to do with the Lopez girl?” Shelby questions.

“Apparently you’re stalking all of our press,” Rachel teases. Shelby just shrugs, but doesn’t try to deny it. “It’s really hard having Santana around. She went after my role, despite being my roommate. She’s a constant reminder of all of the insecurities I had in high school. I already know how she can cut me down to nothing considering she did so on a regular basis for the first two years of high school.”

“I’m a little surprised she even managed to land the understudy role to be honest,” Shelby tells her. “There’s no denying that she’s incredibly talented, but she’s not right for Funny Girl.”

Shelby is the first person to see it beside herself. Rachel has never believed that Santana wasn’t talented enough; she’s a fantastic singer and her acting is pretty spectacular considering she’s never taken a class in her life. But she’s not Fanny.

Somehow, this common agreement warms Rachel to Shelby in a way that nothing else in their past has. Conversation flows easier, and Shelby helps her work on how to handle the stress. 

Rachel insists on picking up the bill - it’s the least she can do after Shelby trekked all the way here to meet with her. Beth waves happily to her from her perch against Shelby’s hip, and Rachel feels better about her current trajectory than she has in weeks. They promise to talk soon, and Rachel knows that there’s no sense of urgency to connect with Shelby personally this time. Shelby is a mentor, a confidante of sorts. She’s not her mom, and that’s finally okay.

~!~!~!~

It should help that there are flowers on multiple surfaces of her dressing room, but the overpowering perfumes from the buds leave Rachel feeling nauseated. She clutches at her stomach as she paces the room, willing her lunch to stay down for the duration of the show.

Opening night. Fifteen minutes until show time. The makeup is already caked onto her skin, making her face feel like a mask, hiding Rachel Berry deep underneath. She sucks down big gulps of warm water, willing the nausea to settle in the pit of her stomach.

Rupert appears to tell her that they want her in the wing in ten minutes. He has a headset settled over his ear, and turns away from her, yelling at someone into the mouthpiece. She’s nothing more than a pawn in this wild game of the theatre business, here to earn the company money with her voice. A bad performance tonight could ruin it all in a heartbeat.

An assistant knocks feebly on her door a few minutes later to escort her to her mark. She follows him, muttering her lines to herself under her breath as she drags her feet along the floorboards. From the wing, she can hear the orchestra warming up and welcoming the crowd in. The murmur of people as they flip through their PlayBills is nearly suffocating and she keeps pinching the palm of her hand to make sure that she’s really here.

She’s on stage and the curtain is up and there’s nothing left to do but let the performance sweep her away. The lights are too bright to even see the audience, even though she knows her dads and friends are out there beyond the glow.

By the time the curtain is falling again after their final bow, Rachel knows that she pushed her voice a little too hard. Her throat is raw from over exertion, her stomach is cramped with hunger, and despite the celebratory activities that are already planned, she wants nothing more than to climb into bed immediately.

The way to her dressing room is packed with cast members congratulating her and she barely has the energy to acknowledge them with more than a weak smile.

Rupert intercepts her halfway there and reminds her that once she’s cleaned up that she’ll need to do a meet and greet by the stage doors for all of the fans that have lined up. The idea alone makes her want to dart through the main exit with the crowd to avoid it. As usual, she’s forced to remind herself that it’s part of the job description. She trudges to her dressing room, anxious to free herself from the layers of stage makeup and bobby pins holding the wig painfully onto her head.

She slips into the room and immediately starts tugging at her costume, desperate to be free from the itchy material at once.

“Nice performance, Berry. Too bad you didn’t actually break a leg so that I could have put my moves to good use.” Santana is sitting on her dressing room couch, legs crossed at her thighs, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She smirks at Rachel’s reflection in the mirror as they make eye contact.

“This is my dressing room, Santana. You have no right to be in here and I would like to avoid calling security on opening night. We don’t need any bad press right now.”

“Any and all bad press will simply be a reflection of your performance, I assure you,” Santana tells her, looking more than amused at the horror on Rachel’s face. “I never thought I’d see the day that Rachel Berry was flat.”

“I was not!” Rachel retorts, though mentally she’s already running through every note she sang, trying to recall her pitch. 

Santana just shrugs, not giving any inclination as to whether her comment was a cruel joke or not.

“Enjoy having the world fawn over you tonight,” Santana tells her, standing up from the couch and pulling on the hem of her dress. She looks like she’s ready to hit the nightclub and wonders if Santana is going to be heading out with some of the cast for that club downtown that she overheard a bunch of them talking about the other night.

“I’m just having dinner with my dads and our friends,” Rachel tells her. Santana’s face crumples for a second before she rolls her eyes and stiffens her back.

“Exactly. Nothing like bringing in your own little cheering section to your big girl debut. I guess that way you were at least guaranteed that a handful of people wouldn’t fall asleep.”

They used to be roommates. Hell, they used to be friends. And despite their distance, Rachel knows that Santana just wants to hurt her feelings in order to make herself feel better. Nobody was here for Santana tonight, despite all of the press they’ve been getting together. Santana is her understudy and nobody comes to a show to see the understudy.

Santana’s hurting. She’s lashing out and trying to make Rachel feel awful. But it’s because she’s hurting. Santana will never admit it, just like she’ll never admit that she misses their friendship or that she hates living in the loft with only Kurt. Santana doesn’t believe in showing her vulnerability, and Rachel knows that it’s not going to change.

“You should come with us,” Rachel tries, grabbing a makeup wipe from the counter of dressing table and starts to strip herself of the layers of foundation.

Santana huffs and walks toward the door, pausing with her hand clasped to the handle.

“That sounds like the last thing I’d choose to do on my Saturday night,” Santana tells her. Before Rachel can argue otherwise, Santana is out the door, her hair swishing over her slender shoulders.

Rachel changes into her street clothes - an outfit that her team pre-approved since there will be plenty of photos snapped by excited fans - and heads for the back door.

As soon as she’s out the door and standing on the platform, a crowd of people below. The lights are pretty dim in the dark alley, but she squints to find familiar faces. Her dads are there, standing off to the side of the crowd, looking at her with complete reverence. However, a production assistant shoves a black Sharpie into her palm and she’s forced to face the small group of dedicated Broadway fans.

She signs autographs until her hand cramps up. Thankfully, the crowd has mostly dispersed on its own - she still has a long way to go until she’ll have the fanbase of a real Broadway star - and Rupert claps a hand on her shoulder, announcing that she needs to go now. There’s a tiny grumbling as people saunter away, looking down at their autographs and cell phone pictures. She smiles and waves, desperate for the moment where she can slip back into the crowd of New York and fade into oblivion.

Of course, that’s not too easy when her fathers thrust a huge bouquet of roses into her arms, despite having already sent an arrangement to her dressing room prior to the curtain call. Her cheeks grow red at the attention they shower her in, pulling her into tight embraces and exclaiming loudly about how proud they are of her. In her peripheral, she sees that Paolo still has a crowd of women around him and is posing for pictures. For once, she’s glad to not already have an established reputation as she walks back towards 8th Ave., her daddy’s arm still slung around her shoulders.

Her friends are already at the restaurant when she gets there, all of them somehow drinking wine and beer despite still being in their teens. At first, she tenses, figuring her dads will soon be putting an end to illegal activity - they’ve always been sticklers for rules, it’s where she got it from - but instead, they order a few bottles and announce that tonight is definitely a reason for celebration.

She feels the love emanating from every corner of the room as they all recount their favorite moments of her performance tonight. Kurt keeps checking his phone that’s sitting on his lap, and Rachel can’t help but wonder if he’s talking to Santana. She hates that Santana isn’t here with them.

After dinner, her fathers head back to their hotel room, promising that they’ll see her for brunch before they need to head back to Ohio. The rest of the group starts trying to figure out where to head next. Rachel zones out of the conversation, glancing down at the time on her phone. It’s already nearing midnight and she has another show tomorrow night.

“I need to get some rest,” she informs them, though everybody is too focused on picking a club to go to rather than listen to her. She finally gets Kurt’s attention enough for him to peck her chastely on the cheek before turning back to Elliot to work on a decision.

Rachel hails a cab with ease and steps off the curb when one pulls up for her.

It’s not a conscious decision, but it comes out of her mouth before she has a chance to correct herself.

“Bushwick. Corner of Gates and Evergreen.”

The car jerks back onto the road, speeding along in the quieter night atmosphere. She stares out the window, trying to let her mind go blank.

Kurt is in Midtown, planning his adventures and enjoying being a young, single guy in a big city. She doesn’t live in Bushwick anymore. But she still has a key, and for some reason that’s enough to keep her from redirecting the cab driver.

Bushwick is even quieter than Manhattan and they zig zag through the side streets until the cab finally stops short on the corner. He pressed the meter and Rachel swipes her card through the reader in the backseat before saying goodnight and hopping out.

The building looms in front of her, the overhead light flickering as usual. The awning is faded and starting to disintegrate, but there’s something welcoming about the familiarity.

Her key opens the door with a click and she pulls the heavy metal door open with a grunt. Nobody is around and a sign is still hanging over the broken elevator, so she heads for the stairs, taking them one at a time until she reaches the landing for the third floor.

It’s only now that she really considers turning around. But it’s late and it’s going to be a bitch to hail a cab so she’d have to call for a car. That means she’s got at least half an hour to kill before someone will actually pick her up.

Her feet carry her to the metal sliding door of the loft. She tugs on the handle, but it’s locked. Rachel fingers the key, the grooves scraping along her palm. With a deep breath, she inserts into the keyhole and turns, sliding the door open in one fluid motion.

“Kurt?” she hears Santana call from the living room. She doesn’t answer. “Dani?”

Rachel isn’t sure why, but her stomach twists at the idea that Dani would be able to let herself in. She’s obviously a common visitor as Santana still hasn’t moved from the couch.

“Um, no. No, it’s me.” Rachel’s voice is hardly loud enough to carry that far, but she hears the squeak of the couch as Santana rises to her feet and pads towards the door. Rachel slides the door closed behind her and stands against it, ready to leave as soon as Santana loses her cool.

“What the fuck are you doing in Bushwick at this hour?” Santana questions, staring directly at Rachel.

Rachel has no clue how to respond. She really has no actual reason for being here despite following a random whim.

“I didn’t feel like going to a loud club and straining my voice while trying to converse over the loud music.”

It’s probably far from a reasonable, or useful, explanation, but it’s the best Rachel has.

“So you could go home,” Santana dismisses, turning her back and leaving Rachel standing by the door. Logically, Rachel knows that the best decision would be to turn around and walk out.

She’s never been one to take the easy road.

It takes a long moment to unzip her boots and toss them into the pile next to the door before she pads through to the living room. Santana is holding a sweating beer and flipping through Netflix. She rolls her eyes when she notices Rachel and lifts the beer to her lips. Rachel watches her throat expand as the liquid disappears quickly from the bottle.

Santana slams it back onto the coffee table when it’s empty and follows it up with a deep burp. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and goes back to searching through the “shows you might like” category. Rachel doesn’t miss the number of romantic comedies in the list, but decides not to comment on it.

“Seriously, you don’t even live here,” Santana barks out standing up and pushing her shoulders back. She’s just barely taller than Rachel, but she uses it to her advantage as she tries to hover over her. Rachel has witnessed enough of Santana’s fights to know that she has no problem leaving an imprint of her hand on someone’s cheek. “I should be able to be in my own fucking apartment without whiny princesses wandering in whenever they want.”

“I-I…” Rachel really doesn’t know what to say. All at once, everything feels like it’s crashing around her and that she’s never going to be able to fix it. Tears start burning in her eyes, but she doesn’t want to give Santana that kind of satisfaction.

She turns on her heel and speeds to the door, slamming her feet into her boots and only half zippering them up her calves before she slides the door open. As soon as it clicks into place again, she can’t hold it in anymore. She ducks into the stairwell as the sobs push their way out of her chest.

It’s pretty clear to Rachel that she has lost Santana’s friendship. For good.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santana's POV

Rachel has debuted, and everybody is already assured that she’s the Next Big Thing. There’s plenty for everybody to celebrate tonight, but Santana doesn’t feel that way.

Santana is pretty sure of Rachel’s impending success; Rachel was fantastic tonight. Rachel is perfect in the role - not that Santana ever really doubted she would be - and Santana got to sit back and watch it all unfold in front of her. Rachel’s career is taking off at the speed of light. She’s sitting in the wings as nothing more as a plot device for the media to use to promote Rachel as the next Broadway sweetheart.

After the show, she excuses herself from all of the excitement. It’s Rachel’s moment to shine, and Santana just doesn’t have it in her to play Rachel’s doting fan tonight. So she heads back to the loft alone, stopping for a twelve-pack of beer at the corner store that she plans on drinking by herself.

The hours tick by with only the TV screen and cold beer to keep her company. She’s hardly watching it - it’s mostly there as a distraction from her thoughts - but she stares blankly at the people, sipping from her beer bottle.

Santana is contemplating going to bed when she hears a key in the door. Moments after, the heavy door squeaks along its tracks as it slides open.

“Kurt?” she calls out toward the foyer. It’s still really early for him to be home, plus he usually comes in with a whirlwind of gossip that he just can’t keep quiet about for ten seconds. No answer. “Dani?”

She hears someone moving by the front door, though they’re really not moving into the loft. For some reason, Santana doesn’t move. She listens carefully as she plays with the label of her beer bottle.

“Um, no. No, it’s me.” The voice is timid, probably shyer than Santana has ever heard it.

Santana pulls herself up from the couch and heads in the direction of the front door. She hears the door close. When she turns the corner around the bookcase divider, she sees Rachel standing with her back against the door, looking sort of pathetic.

“What the fuck are you doing in Bushwick at this hour?” Santana questions, staring down Rachel. Her face is washed clean of all of the stage makeup and Santana can make out the bags forming under Rachel’s eyes.

“I didn’t feel like going to a loud club and straining my voice while trying to converse over the loud music.”

It’s basically the dumbest thing Santana has ever heard. Nobody in their right mind would hike out the Bushwick without a good reason. Hell, she can hardly stand to do it and she lives here.

“So you could go home,” Santana tells her, turning away. It’s cold, she knows it is, but she really has no patience for a Rachel Berry pity party tonight when Rachel has just opened a show on Broadway. Santana is sick of drama. It’s Santana’s apartment now - Rachel made the choice herself to move out. She walks back to her place on the couch and picks up her beer, taking a long gulp.

Of course, Rachel doesn’t get the hint. Instead, Santana hears Rachel starting to take her shoes off and her footsteps heading toward the living room. Moments later, she’s standing next to the couch, looking at Santana expectantly. Santana rolls her eyes and drains the rest of her beer, slamming the glass bottle back down onto its coaster on the coffee table angrily.

“Seriously, you don’t even live here,” Santana growls, standing up. Rachel is practically the same height as her and their eyes are level with one another, though Santana is sure hers aren’t nearly as vulnerable as Rachel’s are in this moment. “I should be able to be in my own fucking apartment without whiny princesses wandering in whenever they want.”

“I-I…” Rachel stumbles. Santana can tell that Rachel really doesn’t know how to respond. She shrinks visibly, her shoulders rolling in and her arms automatically crossing over her chest as though she can form an invisible barrier from Santana’s harsh words.

Before Santana can even really dig her claws in, Rachel is spinning away and marching straight for the door. A minute later, the door slides open and closed again, a mix of a sniffle in there with the grinding wheels.

Santana sighs and flops back down on the couch. It’s hard to not feel at least a little guilty. Rachel knew Kurt was out - they had been together before Rachel decided to hitchhike out to Bushwick. Thus, she obviously hoped for some sort of empathy from Santana for god-knows-what.

But Santana is sick of being the good friend to someone who just doesn’t fucking care about anybody but herself. She did everything possible to be there for Rachel when she first got to New York, and Rachel barely even took the time to say thank you. Rachel had no qualms about using Santana when needed, just like she’s always done to Kurt. 

And someone Rachel wonders why nobody can stand her. She wonders why people tortured the hell out of her for most of high school, like she didn’t spend all of her time reminding everybody that she was more talented and stealing other people’s boyfriends because it’s only ever mattered what Rachel wants.

For once, Santana isn’t putting other people first. It always blows up in her face, if her friendships with Brittany and Quinn are anything to go by. She came to New York for herself, and Santana is finally ready to make herself the priority.

First thing the next morning, Santana drags her laptop onto the couch with her and starts searching for auditions. She scribbles information down on a notepad, preparing for everything from crappy commercials or print ads, to big roles in shows that she’s never even heard of. All she knows is that she needs to get away from Funny Girl, and the sooner that happens, the better off she’ll be.

Kurt wanders in around lunchtime, looking more hungover than Santana ever remembers seeing him. She’s also pretty sure it’s the first time that she’s seen Kurt emerge from public without perfectly coiffed hair.

“How was the celebration?” she asks him, a hint of a smirk playing at her lips.

“Pretty awesome,” Kurt admits, running a hand carelessly through his messy hair. “I met a really cool guy.”

“Did Rachel have fun being the complete center of attention?” Santana pushes. Kurt hesitates as he unbuttons his coat and hangs it by the door.

“Well, she went home pretty early. Said she didn’t feel well or something.”

Kurt seems disinterested in why Rachel abandoned her own celebration so early in the night. Instead, he’s looking at his phone, texting what Santana assumes to be this week’s new boy toy.

She doesn’t press him any further, but it does confirm her suspicion that Kurt has no idea that Rachel showed up at the loft last night. Instead, she lets Kurt drag himself into the bathroom for a long, rejuvenating shower. 

Yet all afternoon, in the back of her mind she can’t help but worry about Rachel. What if she really needed Santana last night? What if she needed someone to be an actual friend to her when everybody else was just going through the motions? Santana didn’t even try to be there. She put herself first. And now she can’t stop worrying about the girl that she shouldn’t give a shit about.

The next morning, Santana is up early. There are two open calls that she has time to make before she’s due at the theater for the night show. It’s not like she’s going to be on stage anyway - she figures it’s fine to be exhausted while she sits in a corner for a few hours in the off chance Rachel trips and breaks her ankle or something.

Santana spends hours sitting in cramped hallways, going over the ridiculous two-line scripts for low-level commercials. It’s even worse when she finally gets in front of the casting directors and she can tell her skin tone isn’t what they’re looking for before she even hands them her resume or performs the lines. But she goes through the motions anyway and firmly keeps her anger under the surface. It’s something that she’s always struggled with - keeping her opinions about people to herself - yet, she knows that the last thing she wants to do is tarnish her name well before she ever lands a decent gig.

It hurts her ego to see the way that these old men hardly give her resume a glance, but have no problem scrutinizing every inch of her body while she stands there. In high school, she loved the fact that she could turn practically every male’s head without even trying, but it’s totally different when she’s hoping that the objectification leads to a paying gig.

It’s disheartening, to say the least.

By the time she gets released from the second open call - with no callback, no less - she has to sprint to the theater without even stopping to eat something, despite the fact that all she’s consumed today is an apple and a venti iced coffee. 

Rachel’s dressing room door is open as Santana shuffles by. Unconsciously, she slows her pace, glancing into the small room as the hair and makeup artists fuss over the tiny brunette, who is staring straight ahead into the mirror. Even from the reflection, Santana notices the dark bags under Rachel’s eyes and the way her shoulders slump underneath her robe.

She keeps walking - what else is there really for her to do? - and drops her own bag next to her chair in the corner of the dingy room with the rest of the nobodies.

It’s her place for the rest of the night, and she realizes that she might actually have time to read a book or something with all of the time in her day that is simply spent waiting around. Instead, she bribes an assistant to sneak her a bag of chips and she scarfs them down greedily, ignoring the looks of the others that keep shuffling through. She keeps track of the show from when Rachel rushes off stage for costume changes and makeup retouches, her concern only growing with every new glimpse.

Rachel looks on the verge of collapse, like she’s only running on pure adrenaline and sheer will power to prove everybody in this pathetic world wrong. Santana can’t help but stare openly at Rachel, wondering what happened to the bushy-eyed girl that planned to take New York by storm as soon as her train pulled into Penn Station in June.

Though, it’s probably what has happened to all of them - real life is a lot harder than they ever imagined.

***

All week, Santana keeps an eye on Rachel between scenes. Each day, Rachel looks more worn out and exhausted to the point where Santana isn’t even sure how Rachel is making it through the entire show without so much as a single flat note.

She acts indifferent, stealing glances over the edge of her book backstage whenever Rachel appears. Rachel is too focused to notice the attention - she has an entire audience on the other side of the curtain that are paying to see her, why would she care about her ex-friend watching her for free?

By Friday night’s show, Rachel looks ragged. Santana gets to the theater early, a styrofoam box of soggy leftovers and a John Grisham novel in tow. Rachel’s dressing room door is open, but it’s too early for the stage makeup. She’s curled on the lumpy couch, a sweatshirt tucked under her head as a pillow.

Santana leans against the doorframe, trying to decide whether it’s okay to go in or not. Rachel has a way of being sort of unpredictable, and Santana figures it’s not a good idea for Rachel to be wasting her vocal chords yelling at her to get out mere hours before a big weekend show. 

Instead, Santana pulls the door closed and slumps to her little corner to eat her cold dinner.

That night, Santana actually bothers to watch the show from the wings. She’s heard every line delivered and every note to every song more times than she can count, but it’s different when it happens while Rachel moves on stage in full costume. The audience claps enthusiastically after every number, and it’s easy for Santana to feel proud of Rachel while hidden away next to the stagehands.

The curtain goes down for intermission and Rachel comes hustling off stage, sweat dripping from her temples. Her eyes land on Santana, her expression unreadable. They both hold the gaze until an assistant ushers Rachel away to drink some water and prepare for the second act.

Santana spends the rest of the show back in her corner, hiding from the intensity of Rachel’s gaze. When the applause rings out after the finale, Santana grabs her bag and darts for the back door, determined to be gone before Rachel even leaves the stage.

***

It becomes easier to dodge Rachel. While Santana still has rehearsals to stay fresh in case of a dire emergency (like Rachel finally needed to get her tonsils removed or a stampede of rhinos mauling Rachel seconds before her curtain call), the shows are Rachel’s biggest commitment. Santana knows where she can hide out in the theater during shows that are out of Rachel’s sight, and she inhabits them constantly. Rupert calls her a creepy ghost, the way she flutters away in the shadows whenever Rachel turns a corner.

But it’s easier this way. Santana may be a bitch, but she doesn’t want to interfere with Rachel’s real shot at the big leagues. So she stays out of the way, avoiding any chance of conflict.

That doesn’t stop her from stalking Rachel online and reading all of the Broadway chat forums that are analyzing every minute of the Funny Girl revival. It’s an easy habit to hide considering Kurt is practically never home these days. She also never realized how many young Rachel Berrys there were in the world, but the Broadway cyber-world is filled with teenage girls talking about the day that they’ll inevitably get their big break in New York.

Little do they know that Rachel Berry is truly one-in-a-million. It’s a fact, given how many young performers she had to beat out just to get this role in the first place. Santana doesn’t burst their fragile little bubbles, however. It’s kind of cute to see all of these tiny Rachel wannabes dreaming big and counting the days until they too can escape their pathetic cow towns.

***

The avoidance technique works for exactly three weeks.

Her feet are killing her and she has chocolate shake spilled down the front of her apron from a bratty ginger kid who decided it wasn’t chocolaty enough before shoving it off the table. The dinner rush is finally winding down, and Santana is so ready for the end of her shift. It lingers over her head with the promise of a scalding shower and the comfort of her own bed for eight solid hours.

But Bern, the new hostess, walks into her section with a brunette in tow. Even with the huge sunglasses on, Santana would know that walk anywhere.

Rachel sits down in the booth, but doesn’t remove her sunglasses or even glance at her menu. Santana considers begging one of the guys to take the table - they’re all desperate for some extra tips anyway - but she knows that wouldn’t deter Rachel from whatever her mission here is.

Instead, Santana chooses to be professional and nonchalant. She drags her tired feet over to the booth, pen in hand.

“Hi, I’m Santana and I’ll be your server this evening. Can I start you off with a drink?” Santana stares straight at the salt shaker. Rachel’s slim fingers dance along its surface.

“Ice water with lemon on the side,” Rachel answers immediately, still hidden behind her enormous sunglasses. Santana rolls her eyes and shoves the pen into the pocket of her apron. “And maybe we can talk after your shift is over.”

Rachel stumbles through the words like she hadn’t planned to blurt them out as soon as Santana approached her table. Santana doesn’t miss the pink tint that appears on Rachel’s cheeks.

Thankfully another table is trying to flag her down for their check, so Santana walks away from Rachel without responding. She drops the bill off to the family from Wisconsin - they talked her ear off about how exciting New York City was when she first greeted them and she’s learned to care more about the tip than telling customers to shut up - and takes her time walking to the drink station to get Rachel her water. Eventually she can’t help but return to drop it off.

“I still like have four hours,” Santana informs her as she deposits the glass of water and a small plate with a couple of lemon slices on the table in front of Rachel.

“Kurt said you were getting off at eight,” Rachel replies, clicking her phone screen on to check the time. “It’s already quarter past seven.”

“In the world of the service industry, people bail on their shifts and others get stuck covering them,” Santana retorts, as though it wasn’t mere months ago when Rachel wore this very same uniform. “I’ll be at the service of the New York tourists until midnight.”

“Well that is unfortunate,” Rachel sympathizes. “In that case, I shall look over the menu.” She finally pulls the sunglasses down, though her eyes dart around the room like the paparazzi are about to spring out from behind a potted plant to snap her picture. Santana refrains from rolling her eyes, but she walks away to let Rachel peruse the menu.

The next four hours go by slowly. Despite being open 22 hours a day, closing only for a decent cleaning before the breakfast crowd piles in, the diner is slow after the dinner rush. True to her word, Rachel stays planted in Santana’s section. 

At half past eleven, Santana’s manager finally tells her that she’s free to go. Considering she’s spent the better part of the last hour filling ketchup bottles and wiping down tables, she jumps on the offer to clock out early.

She drops Rachel’s check on her table and slides into the booth across from her. Rachel puts her bookmark on her page and lets the paperback close.

“I’m done as soon as you pay,” Santana tells her, gesturing towards the bill.

Without even looking at the bill, Rachel opens her clutch and pushes a crisp $100 dollar bill across the table in Santana’s direction.

“Keep the change,” Rachel tells her, closing her clutch and standing up, stretching her arms.

“Your bill was like thirty bucks,” Santana reminds her, reaching for the receipt and Rachel’s money.

“I took up a table in your section for hours, it’s the least I can do for the tables you lost.”

That makes Santana laugh. She hasn’t had a new customer in nearly two hours anyway.

“I’m not pocketing your insane tip,” Santana tells her before sliding out of the booth to close out Rachel’s tab. She breaks the bill and grabs the change from the register. By the time she gets back to the table, Rachel is in her coat and is lingering, obviously waiting for Santana to join her.

Santana drops the change, every cent of it, onto the tabletop and heads into the back to get her coat and bag. God, she can’t wait to get out of her sticky, chocolate-stained uniform. She takes her time gathering her belongings, but it’s futile. Rachel is still standing exactly where Santana left her.

The change is still on the table. If Santana leaves it on the table, one of the busboys will nab it. She likes Carlos okay, but the new dude Pete is a sleazy perv that doesn’t deserve anything more than his required cut. She picks up the bills and reaches forward to shove them into Rachel’s pocket. Rachel manages to catch on and backs away, leaving Santana standing awkwardly with a handful of cash.

“God, you’re frustrating, Berry. I’m not your damn charity case,” Santana growls, but she shoves the money into her pocket, figuring she’ll drop it in Rachel’s dressing room while Rachel is on stage tomorrow night.

It’s midtown, so even though it’s nearing midnight, lights still flash from the restaurant signs and billboards above their heads. Coming from Ohio, it still amazes Santana how she’s never alone on the streets here, even in the dead of night. She watches an Urban Outfitters advertisement morph into a giant Calvin Klein model on the electronic billboard hanging on the skyscraper in front of her.

She’s not exactly sure how to proceed with Rachel walking in step beside her. Santana has no interest in sitting in some bar in her disgusting work uniform. It’s a nice enough night to walk around, but her feet are hurting from such a long shift at work.

“I guess we can go to the loft,” Santana offers. She purposely avoids calling it “her” apartment. Even in her head, it’s not hers. Kurt and Rachel found the place months before she even popped up in New York. She’s merely a resident of the space, paying rent for her little corner.

Rachel doesn’t say anything, so Santana takes that as an agreement and heads to 42nd Street to pick up the M train back to Bushwick. Rachel follows silently a few paces behind.

The subway car is nearly empty and Santana gratefully collapses onto the bench, letting her head fall back tiredly against the window.

“You know, subway trains are essentially a breeding ground for all kinds of viruses and bacteria,” Rachel reminds her. Santana cracks her exhausted eyes open to see Rachel rubbing hand sanitizer between her palms vigorously.

“A toddler sneezed on me as I served him chicken fingers and I’m covered in some brat’s backwashed chocolate milkshake. I’m pretty sure a few subways germs aren’t going to kill me,” Santana retorts, watching Rachel through the barely open slits of her eyelids. She’s sure that Rachel is going to pull out one of those surgical masks to keep from breathing the infected air.

Rachel sighs, but gives up on lecturing Santana about the hygienic conditions of public transportation. From then, they ride in silence and Santana lets her eyes close again. Normally she’d pop in her ear buds and let the music clear her mind, but it seems rude to do that when Rachel is fidgeting beside her.

Rachel stands up to wait by the doors a full stop early, even though there are only a handful of people in their car. Santana’s legs protest moving, and she stays firmly in her seat until the moment that the train halts at their stop. Rachel is already on the platform, lingering by the stairs as she waits for Santana to catch up.

Santana lets Rachel continue to lead up the scuffed steps to the street, then down the few blocks to the apartment building. As soon as they’re under the faded green awning hanging limply over the front door, Rachel sidesteps to allow Santana to unlock the door. Rachel still has keys - Santana learned that for sure on opening night when Rachel randomly showed up in the apartment - but she seems to want to give Santana control. Rachel stays behind her up the narrow flights of stairs and waits patiently as Santana struggles with the finicky old lock on the loft’s door.  
Inside, the loft is dark - Kurt must be out with Adam’s Apples buddies - so Santana flips the light switch and heads for her corner, desperate to be out of her sticky, milkshake-covered uniform. She doesn’t bother closing her curtain before stripping down - she’s so used to Kurt not caring and she kind of likes when he compliments her on her physique or flawless skin anyway. As soon as the uniform falls to the ground, leaving her in just her underwear, she hears Rachel release a choking cough from where she stands in the living room. She catches herself, so Santana doesn’t bother turning around as she pulls on a tank top and her rattiest old pair of Cheerio sweatpants.   
Sweeping her hair into a ponytail, she crosses the short distance from her makeshift bedroom to the designated living area, where Rachel is perched stiffly on the edge of the armchair, staring pointedly at her own lap.  
“What’s so important that it couldn’t possibly wait until daylight hours?” Santana questions. It comes off bitchier than she meant it too. Rachel already seems to be expecting a tongue lashing, however, because she doesn’t even flinch at the harshness of Santana’s tone.  
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Rachel states matter-of-factly.  
“That’s not really breaking news, Rachel,” Santana reminds her.  
“But… I mean, before you’d at least acknowledge my presence with your demeaning comments.”  
Santana rolls her eyes. It’s true that most of their interactions involved her making remarks about Rachel that usually weren’t very flattering. Brutal honesty has always kind of been her thing, even though she learned early on in life that nobody seemed to appreciate knowing exactly what she thought of them.  
“Why does it even matter to you? You have your leading lady role, men willing to fall at your feet to woo the new heiress of Broadway. Just like a dream come true.” Santana doesn’t withhold the bitterness that seeps into her words.   
It’s impossible not to feel bitter. Rachel is living pretty on her full-time paycheck and invitations to glamorous events, while Santana is working around the clock just to pay her rent on time. She doesn’t even remember what it feels like to have a social life because any hour that she’s not at one of her jobs, she’s face down on her pillow, feebly attempting to recharge before doing it all over again.  
“Having a career I love doesn’t mean that I stop caring about my friends,” Rachel tells Santana, rubbing her hands along her thighs nervously. “I would never give up the stage, or my chance for success.” Santana knows that for sure. “But there are so many moments that I wonder if it’s all really worth it. I don’t get to be nineteen.”  
Santana can’t believe that Rachel has the nerve to come here just to try and win pity from her. Nothing in Santana’s life has ever been handed to her - and that includes the love from her parents. She’s had to work for everything, yet she still has so little to show for it. Rachel had unlimited lessons and coaches, plus two dads that chose her, that wanted her, that supported every tiny dream that popped into her head and gave her every single tool to make those dreams come true.  
Rachel has worked hard - nobody would ever try to argue otherwise. There was a point during sophomore year when Brittany was convinced that Rachel lived in a secret lair built in the choir room, and Santana found it hard to disagree considering the girl happened to be in there before early morning Cheerio practices even started.   
“Well, being nineteen means that I work eighteen to twenty hours a day to make ends meet. You can do this ‘grass is greener’ thing all night, but I’m not going to sit here and make you feel better because you have financial stability and your dream job while the best thing most of us have is finding a quarter on the sidewalk and not getting screamed at by unhappy customers for an entire shift.”  
Rachel sighs and clasps her hands together again. She’s still refusing to look up at Santana, like if she accidently makes eye contact, Santana is going to turn her to stone or something.  
“What is it that you want from me, Rachel?”  
And then the waterworks start. Santana manages to keep her groan inside as she grabs the box of tissues from the end table and thrusts it at Rachel. Right now, she’d pick having another dozen milkshakes spilled on her over comforting Rachel.  
“I’m sorry that I lashed out at you for going after the understudy role,” Rachel squeaks out in between sobs. “I got so used to everybody trying to knock me down a few pegs that I assumed it was about me rather than your own ambitions.”  
Did she want to play Fanny? Not really. If it were West Side Story, she would have killed Rachel to play Maria. Fanny was just an opportunity to start building up her resume.  
“Great. So you’re finally sorry. Do you feel better now that it’s off your chest?” Santana crosses her arms over her chest tightly, wondering how much longer she has to endure Rachel’s dramatics before she can finally go to sleep.  
“I miss you, you know,” Rachel sniffles, finally pulling a tissue out of the box Santana had handed her.   
“I thought that the only friend you needed was fame. Don’t you need applause to live?” Santana knows that she’s just intentionally being cruel now, but she can’t stop herself. Rachel is the one who threw a fit and moved out, leaving them behind. Santana thought she finally had a real friend in New York, but Rachel proved her wrong as soon as she felt the tiniest bit threatened.  
“The big stage is something I’ve always dreamed about,” Rachel agrees. “However, that stage means nothing if you don’t have people in your life to share the journey with. I’ve never been great with friendship. All of them have been cemented in competition and never-ending rivalry. Until you auditioned, you were the first friend I had that I didn’t feel like I was competing with.”  
“We’re still not competing, Rach. I sit in the wings every night on the off chance that you fall and break your ankle. I’m literally just insurance.”  
“Santana -”  
“I don’t need you to comfort me. I know what my role is and I fulfill it. Being your understudy is not my ultimate goal in life, but it’s getting me through right now. So please, don’t sit here and act like you owe me an apology for winning a role you earned. Just accept that I earned mine as well and that it had nothing to do with you.”  
Rachel nods, pulling her lips into a thin line. She’s obviously bursting to say more, but for once, she manages to not comment. Santana watches as the girl stands up, obviously deciding that’s her cue to leave. They say awkward goodbyes, Santana unmoving from her perch on the couch. It’s not until Rachel lets herself out with a resounding thud of the sliding door does Santana exhale and drag her exhausted body into her bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: I don’t plan to stick with canon for the entire story. This story evolved from the beginning of the Pezberry feud, but was planned out right after 5x10, so don’t expect any real canonical representation beyond that point. I want to explore what could have happened as a result of Santana auditioning for Funny Girl and that’s the angle that the entirety of this story is going to take.
> 
> I would be nothing without my incredible beta, quasi-suspect. If you’re not reading her story, I’ll Be Your Mirror (or its predecessor), then you really should be. She’s amazing.


End file.
